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1 

1 



A Syrian Pilgrimage 



JOHN BAYNE ASCHAM 

Author of "Help From the Hills." 



THE ABINGDON PRESS 
Jftero Sort Cincinnati 



,3 

• A* 



Copyright, 1914, 
By John Bayne Ascham 



AUG 271914 

©CI.A379371 



To 



EPWORTH CHURCH 

Whose Goodwill to Its Minister 
Made Possible the Fulfill- 
ment of a Dream 



PREFACE 



Aside from the pure pleasure of writing this book, 
a motive luring enough to fill the world with books, 
the author hopes that it sets forth the great ad- 
vantage which can come to any busy minister or 
Bible teacher from a tour of Palestine. To make 
such a visit worth while, the student must leave the 
few carriage roads and hotels and travel with tents 
and horses. It seems scarcely worth the effort to 
visit the land unless this can be done. 

The writer had the opportunity of making 
such a trip with the American School of Oriental 
Research in March and April of 1913. The party 
consisted of Professor Warren J. Moulton, Bangor 
Theological Seminary, Director of the School dur- 
ing 1912-13 ; Messrs. C. V. McLean, J. H. Nelson, 
and C. D. Rockey, regular students of the School ; 
Professor Henry T. Fowler, of Brown University ; 
Professor Ismar J. Peritz, of Syracuse University ; 
the Rev. Dr. Lester Bradner, of Providence, and 
the author, who were registered as special students. 

No one of these gentlemen has expressed his 
views in this book, and the School at Jerusalem is 
not to be judged by the archaeological merits of 

5 



PREFACE 



this volume. It expresses only the author's grati- 
tude to Dr. Moulton for the privilege of joining 
one of his tours, and to the others for the happy 
fellowship of those rare weeks. In other respects 
it voices the impression which that wonderful land 
of mountain and desert, valley and tableland, ruins 
and precious memories has wrought in my soul. 

I express my appreciation of the courtesy of 
Z 'ion's Herald in permitting me to use here so much 
material which formerly appeared in that journal. 

Toledo, Ohio. J. B. ASCHAM. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

I. The Land of the World's Desire, 13 



II. Jerusalem— The Present City, 22 

III. Alone in the Holy City, - -33 

IV. From Jerusalem to the Jordan, 43 
V. The Road to Medeba, - - - 50 

VI. A Day with Herod the Great, - 60 

VII. At Moab's Capital, - - - 70 

VIII Where Uriah the Hittite Died, 80 

IX. Jerash and Gadara, - - -89 

X. The Eastern Shore of Galilee, 98 

XI. Bethsaida to Banias, - 108 

XII. The Sources of the Jordan, - 116 

XIII. The Galilean Lake, - - - 127 

XIV. The Plain of Jezreel, - - 138 
XV. Nazareth and Mt. Carmel, - - 149 

XVI. The Ride to Omri's Capital, - 156 

XVII. Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim, - - 165 

XVIII. Going Up to Jerusalem, - - 182 

XIX. A Day in the Wilderness, - - 191 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Garden of Gethsemane, - Frontispiece 

Facing Page 

Jerusalem from the North, - - -34 
A Bedouin Woman, 72 

v/ 

Temple of the Sun at Gerasa, - - -92 
Rich Pasturages of Jaulan, - 108 
Source of the Jordan at Banias, - - 118 
Source of the Jordan at Dan, - - 120 
Tiberias and Sea of Galilee, ... 132 
A Wayside Well, - 144 
A Shunem Residence, ----- 146 
A Mazzebah : Ruins at Tanaach, - - 156 
Dothan and Joseph's Well, - 160 
Temple Ruins at Samaria, - 162 
Nablous (Shechem), ----- 166 
Summit of Mt. Gerizim, - - - 176 

Bethel, - 184 

The Road to Tekoa, 192 



\ 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



I 



THE LAND OF THE WORLD'S 
DESIRE 

From the time that Abraham turned away from 
his native Ur and followed the prompting of his 
soul, until he pitched his black tents and pastured 
his flocks beside the fountains and upon the hills 
of Canaan, until to-day Syria has been the coveted 
goal of countless multitudes. This land, which 
lifts its mountains between two ancient seats of 
civilization, the valleys of the Euphrates and the 
Nile, was crested each night with sunset to catch 
the restless glance of Assyrian imperialists and 
glittered with a thousand years of dawn to tempt 
the Egyptian to multiply his fields and granaries. 
Palestine so often has been the melting-pot of in- 
vading tribes, so frequently has been the scene of 
battle, is so covered with the architectural strata 
of racial home-builders, has been the object of so 
much religious prilgrimage — that it has become 
uniquely the Land of the World's Desire. 

The historian, always eager to throw the light 
of inquiry a little farther back into the shadows 
of a people's beginnings, has not been able to see 
with convincing certainty beyond the restless surg- 

13 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



ing of Semitic nomads out of the south and center 
of Arabia into Syria, the northern limit of the 
Arabian world. At least twenty-five centuries be- 
fore the Christian era this migratory process be- 
gan, and until the unification of Arabia under the 
banners of Islam the history of the southern border 
of Palestine is the story of nomadic tribes strug- 
gling northward, pressed by the need of larger and 
richer pasturages. There are many Old Testament 
references to the keenness of this upward pressure 
of the Edomites, whose territory, at the threshold 
of Biblical history, lay directly south of Beersheba 
and the Dead Sea, and though "all the Edomites 
became servants to David" 1 and subsequent sover- 
eigns of Judah imposed their yoke upon the South 
Country, the day of Edom's triumph came in the 
seizure of Hebron, during the fourth pre-Christian 
century, for its capital and the rise of Idumea in 
Herodian history. The Nabateans are a second 
instance of this Arabian push toward Palestine. 
By the beginning of the third century before our 
era they responded to the lure of the north and 
drove the Edomites from their ancient cities, seized 
upon the capital at Petra, furnished a wife for 
Herod the Great, and about 85 B. C. crowned their 
king, Aretas, Lord of Damascus and Ccele-Syria. 
As early as the reign of Hammurabi (B. C. 

i 2 Sam. 8: 14. 

14 



THE LAND OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE 



21 30-2088) 2 the rising empire of the Tigris- 
Euphrates valley looked longingly toward the hill 
cities and pasturges of Palestine, and this great law- 
giver of Babylon, among many other titles, calls 
himself the Father of the West Land. 3 This dream 
of sovereignty over the west was realized so dis- 
astrously to Israel in Sargon's capture of Samaria 
in 722, and in the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 
through the fierce anger of Nebuchadnezzar. The 
Book of Lamentations presents imperishable echoes 
of the ravage of the conqueror and the desolation 
of the captive people. George Adam Smith's 
"Jerusalem" gives in powerful translation some of 
this immortal dirge: 

No kings of the earth had believed, 
No man in the world, 
That foe or besieger could enter 
Jerusalem's gates. 4 

But in spite of the supposed impregnability of 
Jerusalem, the enemy has borne them down. 

They hunted our steps till we could not 

Walk our own streets. 

Swifter were they that pursued us 

Than eagles of heaven. 

They hunted us over the mountains, 

They ambushed the desert. 4 

* Driver's Genesis, Ed. 1911, p. 156. 
» Driver's Genesis, Ibid. 
« Vol. II, p. 281. 

15 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



The student of Assyrian and Babylonian history 
can not help being astonished at the swiftness and 
the strength of the armies, the shadows of whose 
campaigns hung over Syria for more than two 
thousand years. 

From 538, when Cyrus made himself master of 
the Babylonian world, until Alexander the Great 
swept with his comet army across the Orient, Syria 
was a satrapy of the Persian Empire and was the 
scene of many military expeditions and conflicts. 
Under one of the Artaxerxes, Jerusalem dreamed 
independence, but her pride was punished in the 
defiling of the Temple by the entrance of the Per- 
sian general into its Holiest Place and in the carry- 
ing of many Jews into captivity. 

The going-up to Jerusalem by Western peoples 
began in the brilliant campaigns of Thotmes III, 
King of Egypt, in the first half of the sixteenth 
century before Christ. Syria at this time possessed 
a higher civilization than Egypt 5 and offered such 
rich booty in coats of mail, gold-plated chariots, 
lapis-lazuli, oil, and slaves that Egyptian princes 
contested the land with the kings of the Tigris- 
Euphrates world until their strife was quelled in 
Rome's triumph. 

Greece and Rome also visited the land, built 
magnificent cities, watered them with acqueducts, 

6 Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the O. T., p. 255. 

16 



THE LAND OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE 



connected them with great roads, and gave them 
a large measure of independence. Nothing less 
than a visit to these ancient seats of Western civil- 
ization in the eastern Jordan country convinces one 
of the imperial purpose of the West to rule the East. 
Streets of columns with magnificent arched-gate 
terminals, solid slabs of basalt worn with the 
chariot-wheels of nineteen centuries ago, the ruins 
of massive temples, splendid theaters built into the 
hillside and open to the sky, forums and amphi- 
theaters, baths and acqueducts, bridges not battered 
down by twenty centuries of war and weather, a 
waste of scattered and broken columns, richly 
carved capitals, fragments of monuments, tombs, 
sarcophagi, and milestones mark the sites of these 
Graeco-Roman outposts in Eastern Palestine and 
testify to the bravery of imperial dreams. Suc- 
ceeding chapters will present something of the 
almost forgotten splendor of these cities of the 
Decapolis; of Scythopolis, the Bethshan of Saul's 
tragedy; of Hippos, Gadara, and Pella directly 
across the Jordan from the outlet of the Plain of 
Jezreel; of Gerasa, whose ruins nearly rival Baal- 
bek; of Philadelphia, the old Ammonite capital, 
under whose walls Uriah the Hittite was foully 
done to death. 

It ever will be a fascinating study to follow 
the Christian pilgrims, the knights of the military 

17 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



religious orders, and the Crusading armies in their 
vain attempt to wrest the tomb of Christ from the 
hand of Mohammed. The blood and the wealth 
poured out in Syria for this high purpose never 
will cease to radiate with their ideals the history 
of the Middle Ages. The tenure of the Latin 
Kingdom in Palestine, though less than ninety years 
in time, still has witness borne in ruined fortresses 
and churches to the heroism of its founders and 
their resolve to dwell permanently in the land. Not 
until one sees their castles surmounting the advan- 
tageous hills throughout the land, splendid and 
massive in their ruins, is there an adequate realiza- 
tion of the passion of the mediaeval Church to con- 
vert Palestine into a Christian kingdom. 

Traditional Judaism turns longingly to the 
land of its forefathers. Regarding the destruction 
of Jerusalem as the most tragical occurrence of 
their history, those Jews whose Messianism centers 
in an individual Messiah yearn to set up their theo- 
cratic state in Palestine and re-enact their ancient 
ritual, whose observance, by their dispersion among 
the nations, so long has been denied them. These 
Zionists can not understand the modernist Jews, 
who consider themselves no longer a nation, but a 
religious community, and therefore expect no re- 
turn to Palestine. The orthodox Jew, enthusiastic 

18 



THE LAND OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE 



for a political Zion, is migrating to the Holy Land 
with the courage and faith of an Ezra and Nehe- 
miah. Clinging to a particularistic interpretation 
of Judaism, they have neither the intellectual nor 
the spiritual outlook of their anti-Zionist brethren, 
and no doubt are obstructionists to the advance of 
the finer spirit of their religion. Yet in those settle- 
ments where the Zionists live in agricultural com- 
munities, the return to Palestine has been a blessing 
to the land. In those communities, such as are 
found in Jerusalem and Tiberias, where life is pos- 
sible only through the charity of European Jews, 
the return has fiascoed in idle beggary. 

Finally, Western civilization sends its pilgrims 
by the thousands each year to visit the sacred 
places. The Latin and the Greek Easter each draw 
visitors from afar to share their sacred ritual. 
Ships are chartered, not only by American tourists, 
but also by pilgrim associations, and the spring- 
time of the land is glad with the joy of those who 
have reached the supreme goal of their life. One 
gets a new sense of the vitality of religion in wit- 
nessing the crowds which crush into the Church of 
the Holy Sepulcher to share in the coming of the 
Holy Fire, the bathing of the pilgrims in the 
Jordan, using the robe, sanctified by these sacred 
waters, by and by for their winding-sheet, or the 

19 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



troop of Russian peasants tramping in their wooden 
shoes, men and women, across country to worship 
at some sacred site. Surely this is a land desired of 
the nations. 

I too have been a pilgrim. For years I longed 
to go up to Jerusalem. I went with no expectation 
of disillusionment. I knew that Mohammedan 
fanaticism, Turkish oppression, the jealous quar- 
rels of Christian sects, and the ravage of twenty 
centuries had changed the land and the people 
since Abraham led his flocks in Syrian valleys and 
the adorable Nazarene taught in Galilee and died 
at Golgotha. But I knew also that the blue sky 
still bent as of yore over mountains purple-hazed, 
yellow rivers, and sun-kissed seas; the flowers yet 
bloomed, and the stars still swung nightly into 
sight to witness the majesty of God; and I believed 
that the land would speak to me with something of 
the spirit in which it spoke to Judea's singers, law- 
givers, and prophets, and fasten forever in my soul 
priceless memories of our Lord. It has given no 
disappointment. The wonder grows of the unique- 
ness of the Jewish people, of the glory of their 
sacred books, and the divineness of their greatest 
Son, in whom their children yet shall see the fulfill- 
ment of their Messianic dreams. 

So men shall keep on going to that wonderland 
until time is no more. It is the master-commentary 

20 



THE LAND OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE 



of the Book of books. It is the birthplace of 
prophecy and the cradle of Christ. It is the one 
land of the world where in the old time man's aware- 
ness of God was so rich with moral meaning that 
the content of this spiritual consciousness continues 
to be the inspiration and the glory of mankind. 



21 



II 



JERUSALEM— THE PRESENT CITY 

Ancient Jerusalem belongs to the imagination and 
the archaeologist; the modern city lies at hand to 
the casual traveler who brings enough sympathy 
for its sacred associations to weigh lightly its cry 
for baksheesh, its filth, its superstition, its rivalry 
of Christian sects, and the oppressive Mohammedan 
hand which rests authoritatively upon every sacred 
spot, and prohibitively upon every vital attempt 
to modernize its stagnant life. 

It is not strange that the sites made sacred by 
the finest spiritual triumphs of humanity should be 
difficult to identify, or that Jerusalem should be- 
come the center of the world's superstition and 
fanaticism. Few cities have passed through the 
vicissitudes which have fallen upon the City of 
Zion. Periodical earthquakes have rocked her walls 
and houses to their foundations; she has been sub- 
jected to nearly forty sieges, assaults, blockades, 
and military occupations ; her walls have been razed, 
her temples humbled in the dust, her palaces turned 
into stables, her sacred sites obliterated, her gates 
battered down, and her sacred hills plowed by the 

22 



JERUSALEM— THE PRESENT CITY 



avenger's merciless hand. Once a Canaanitish 
stronghold and a place of primitive sacrifice, the 
object of desire for the bravest of Israel's captains, 
one of the Western goals for every great Assyrian 
conqueror, a greatly coveted Egyptian outpost, a 
Maccabean thorn in the pride of the Greek generals, 
the source of Roman triumphs, the jealously 
guarded site of Moslem fanaticism, the heavily- 
fought-for and lightly-kept capital of the Cru- 
saders — it is not strange that Jerusalem has been 
so torn by faction, so steeped in superstition, so 
swept by passion, and so barren in the spirit of the 
religion of the prophets and the Christ which alone 
gives it its glory. 

The traveler who reaches Jerusalem by the rail- 
way obtains a magnificent view of the city during 
the drive from the station to his hotel. The road 
first descends into the Hinnom valley, and then rises 
along its western side to the Jaffa gate. To the 
right the walled city is continually in sight, and 
the walls, lifted upon the hills, however inadequate 
for modern defense, are quite imposing. High 
above the valley rises the traditional Mount Zion, 
with its citadel marking still the site where David's 
fortifications arose, according to the popular ex- 
planations. The Jaffa gate is a continual scene of 
activity. Here beggars lean against the walls, 
bootblacks clamor for the privilege of wiping the 

23 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



sacred dust from the travelers' shoes, carriage 
drivers and donkey boys solicit customers, drago- 
mans arrange for trips through the country, and 
loaded camels rest while their drivers visit and stare 
at the passing stranger. 

He whose knowledge of Jerusalem has been 
drawn from his Bible and his imagination is not 
prepared for the narrow, dirty streets, and the 
difficulty of making one's way through them to 
some desired goal. The pictures of Jerusalem are 
usually taken from the tops of houses and walls, 
from open courts, the Temple area, or the hills, so 
that one is unconsciously deceived into reading into 
the ancient city certain elements of architectural 
grandeur. 

From the Jaffa gate, on the western side of the 
city, there runs through the town, toward the east, 
and ending at the Temple area, one of the two 
main thoroughfares. It is known to the tourist as 
David Street, although by the natives three distinct 
names are given to as many separate sections. This 
street is ten to fourteen feet wide. Sometimes it 
is a series of steps on the hillside. It is lined with 
shops and vegetable stalls. Many narrow lanes, 
only wide enough for two to pass, lead off this 
main thoroughfare, into which should the stranger 
venture he is sure to lose his way. The streets 
often are arched over with houses built above them. 

24 



JERUSALEM— THE PRESENT CITY 



Such passages are dark, unspeakably filthy, and 
lifeless, with dust-laden air which never drew its 
odors from the sun-kissed hills. The health depart- 
ment — I suppose there is one — makes some effort 
to clean these streets. A boy sweeps the dirt into 
little piles, uses a dust-pan to lift the gathered 
debris into a collapsible basket, and then piles the 
refuse into the panniers of a patient donkey, which 
carries its load into some country dumping-ground. 

The second main entrance to the city is through 
the Damascus gate, on the north. Both within and 
without the walls the open spaces near the gate are 
the scene of busy life. Here is to be seen a more 
distinctly native sight. The tourist, and the crowd 
of pushing, boisterous schemers who seek his money, 
seldom make their appearance here. The peasants 
bring their produce to market through this gate, 
and here beggars, ragged, crippled, and diseased, 
who prefer to beseech the passer-by rather than live 
in one of the many hospitals at their disposal, 
solicit from the peasants, whose hearts and heads 
are softer than those of the man of the town. From 
this gate two streets branch, each the width of 
David Street, one leading to the Via Dolorosa and 
by it to St. Stephen's gate and Gethsemane, and 
the other, with some continuations and windings, 
leading to the southerly side of the city. 

Some idea of the dirt accumulated by the city 
25 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



during the centuries is obtained at the Damascus 
gate. This gate, called the Middle Gate in Jere- 
miah 39: 3, and the Fish Gate in Nehemiah 3:3, 
bears a double witness to its age. On the outside 
of the gate, to the left and near the ground, can 
be seen the huge blocks of stone which nearly always 
are evidence of the work of an ancient builder. In 
all of these old gates the entrance from the outside 
of the wall and the entrance from inside the city 
are not in a straight line. It is always necessary 
to turn at right angles within the gate. The city 
wall was widened at the gates to make such an 
entrance possible. Just within the Damascus gate, 
slightly above the present level of the street, is to 
be seen the arch of a former entrance. This means 
that from sixty to seventy-five feet of debris have 
accumulated through the centuries of siege and 
earthquake which separate the modem city from its 
ancient builders. Unless a more thorough system 
of sanitation is adopted, Jerusalem some day, like 
Babylon, will have to be sought beneath a rubbish 
heap. 

St. Stephen's gate opens to the east, and from 
it a footpath descends to Gethsemane. Entering 
the city through it, one passes along the northern 
end of the Temple area, and the Turkish Barracks 
at its northwest corner. This site long has been a 
place of fortification. Here stood the Tower of 

26 



JERUSALEM—THE PRESENT CITY 

Hammeah in Nehemiah's day (3:1), the Bans of 
Hyrcanus I, and the Antonia whose captain res- 
cued Paul. It possesses inglorious memories. Here 
Aristobulus murdered his brother Antigonus ; here 
Queen Alexandria imprisoned the wife and children 
of the rebellious Aristobulus; here Hyrcanus II 
took refuge from his brother; and from here An- 
tigonus, the last of the Hasmonean princes, who 
brought to Israel her latest national glory, went 
forth to fall at the feet of the Roman general 
Sosius. This ancient fortification was rebuilt by 
Herod and named Antonia, in honor of his friend, 
Marcus Antonius. He lined the slopes of the hill 
on which the fortress stood with slabs of polished 
stone to render access impossible. The fortress 
immediately overlooked the Temple area, and was 
handsomely fitted with courts, baths, and splendid 
quarters for the troops. This is the traditional 
location of the Prastorium of Pilate, and the Cath- 
olic churches consider the barracks the first station 
of the cross. From this point the Via Dolorosa 
leads to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The 
second station is a few paces from the steps which 
ascend to the barracks, and marks the spot where 
the cross was laid upon Jesus. Near by the place 
of the scourging is shown, and the birthplace of the 
Virgin Mary. Here, too, ecclesiastical zeal has laid 
hold of a part of an ancient Roman arch and named 

n 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



it the Ecce Homo Arch, and believes that here 
Pilate brought forth his Prisoner and exclaimed, 
"Behold the Man!" Part of the arch has been 
built into a church, and is exhibited with a mixed 
devotional and commercial eagerness. 

Here, too, along this narrow winding road of 
grief are shown the house of Lazarus, the house of 
the Rich Man who neglected him, the spot where 
Jesus met His mother, where Simon shared the 
burden of His cross ; where the Master's hand, put 
forth to steady His weary body, left an impression 
in the stone wall; where St. Veronica lived, and 
where she came forth to wipe the perspiration from 
her Savior's brow (the handkerchief with the im- 
print of His face is kept at numerous shrines in 
Europe), two or three places where He stumbled 
beneath His cross, and where He addressed the 
weeping women. 

The Via Dolorosa ends in the Church of the 
Holy Sepulcher. Here, of course, are to be seen 
the place of crucifixion, the place of sepulture, and 
the tombs, side by side, of Joseph and Nicodemus, 
who befriended the Christ. I put my hand in the 
hole where the cross stood, and in the cleft of the 
rock made by the earthquake at His death. We 
should be glad that none of this precise location 
of sacred sites is trustworthy. The religious ac- 
tivities which such misplaced zeal has called forth 

28 



JERUSALEM— THE PRESENT CITY 



are not at all inspiring, and the Master whom we 
know in the Gospels would be the first to condemn 
this devotion to the letter of His sacrifice and this 
sad departure from the spirit of His mission. 

On Good Friday eve I stood in the crowded 
Church of the Sepulcher and watched the service of 
the entombment. Upon a marble slab, said to mark 
the grave of Adam, and to be the very stone on 
which Joseph and Nicodemus laid the body of Jesus 
to anoint it, were spread linen sheets, and upon 
them was laid a figure to represent Jesus. A hun- 
dred Franciscan monks, bearing tapers, stood round 
the stone and body, chanting their grief. One of 
them mounted a platform, and in Arabic preached 
that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. Then the 
body was taken up and carried, perhaps a hundred 
feet, into another part of the church to the holy 
sepulcher. Easter is often a scene of bigotry, 
jealousy, and fanaticism. The church is used by 
the various Catholic bodies centered here — the 
Romans, Copts, and Greeks. No one of them can 
be trusted with the keys of this place, which for 
them is the most sacred spot in the world. Mo- 
hammedans guard the doors ; Mohammedan guards 
escort the priests in their processionals ; Moham- 
medan soldiers swarm the church at Easter time. 
At the service on Good Friday night, at the moment 
the service began, the huge doors of the church 

29 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



were swiftly swung shut, locked, and double-barred 
by long iron rods, and no one was permitted to 
enter or leave until the service ended. The same 
thing was done next day during the Franciscan 
procession to the altar of crucifixion. 

It is certain that neither the place of scourging, 
the Ecce Homo Arch, the Via Dolorosa, nor the 
Church of the Sepulcher stands upon the place 
which it is intended to commemorate. Eighteen 
years before the birth of Jesus, Herod began the 
building of a magnificent palace. This unquestion- 
ably stood in the northwest corner of the city, near 
the present Jaffa gate. If Josephus may be 
trusted, this palace was the most magnificent Jeru- 
salem ever had seen. It contained banquet-halls 
and apartments for hundreds of guests. The walls 
were decorated with marble, the table service was 
of gold and silver, the furniture was the costliest 
to be had, and beautiful gardens, rich with foun- 
tains, groves, and statues, surrounded the royal 
house. This palace, which rested against the city 
wall on the west and south, was separated from 
the city on the east and north by a palace wall, 
and all its protecting walls were flanked by massive 
towers. One of these still stands, popularly called 
David's Tower, and its top is to be seen lifted 
above the massive wall at the right of the Jaffa 
gate. It was this palace to which Jesus was taken 

30 



JERUSALEM— THE PRESENT CITY 



to be tried before Pilate. All the Roman gov- 
ernors of whom there is any record occupied Her- 
od's palace while they represented the empire in 
Jerusalem. This reduces the traditional Via Dolo- 
rosa to an impossible conjecture, however much it 
may be sanctified by the weeping pilgrims of the 
centuries. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we 
may be reasonably sure, does not mark the site of 
Calvary and the resurrection. If it did, its sacred- 
ness could not long endure the factions which dis- 
pute for its possession. 

There is inspiration enough here without pre- 
cise definition of the holy places. No one who 
ascends the bare mountains upon which Jerusalem 
stands, and studies the rocky, waterless ridges upon 
which its walls have been built; who considers that 
this city, set aloof from the great highways of 
the world, has endured catastrophes which have 
obliterated other ancient seats of civilization; who 
looks from Olivet across the wretched miles of barren 
hilltops and rough gullies to the Jordan — can fail 
to ask himself why this city has been the goal of 
pilgrimage for the finest souls of nearly thirty cen- 
turies. There is but one answer: Here, God alone 
knows why, men in the long ago, schooled in the 
stern discipline of the desert, dreamed of fellowship 
with the Invisible and Eternal One, and struggled 
at vast cost toward civic justice. Here Amos kept 

31 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



his flocks and his soul. Here Hosea loved, sorrowed, 
and forgave. Here -Isaiah, filled with a vision of 
the Holy One, stood for righteous statesmanship. 
Here the poor in spirit, exhausted by Persian and 
Grecian oppressors, sang their immortal songs of 
faith and trust. Here He whom we adore as God's 
Son lifted up His voice and poured out His life 
unto death. Here His greatest representative went 
forth to proclaim His gospel to the ancient world. 
Here on these almost barren hills, rich only in the 
ever-changing colors which alone adorn them, man- 
kind's passion for fellowship with God and for 
human brotherhood has found its fullest expression, 
and made Jerusalem not only the goal of pilgrim- 
age for the ages, but also the symbol of that ideal 
civilization which men ever are striving to usher 
in on earth, and that glad blessedness of commun- 
ion which awaits us in the world to come. 



32 



Ill 



ALONE IN THE HOLY CITY 

Time and patience are the best guides to Jerusalem. 
That which one really wishes to see in the Holy 
City lies far away in the past, and Imagination, 
clothed with some historical knowledge, is better 
guide to the city of Jesus and Solomon than the 
dragoman who hurries the tourist from site to site 
and crams him with their stories. The pilgrim, 
wishing to resurrect the ancient city of tragedy 
and glory from the dust of centuries, will go about 
the streets, churches, mosques, and walls much 
alone. He wants neither guide nor acquaintance 
to tread with him his ideal city. 

Let such a visitor begin with a moonlight walk 
from the Jaffa gate around the north and east 
walls, past the Damascus gate, Herod's gate, the 
Stork's Tower, the ancient tombs, St. Stephen's 
gate, and across the Kidron to the lowest slopes 
of Olivet and Gethsemane. The good road, sil- 
vered by the moon, keeps the level of the walls to 
the northeast corner of the city, and then, descend- 
ing the valley, turns, opposite St. Stephen's gate, 

s 33 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



to cross the Kidron to the garden of prayer and 
betrayal. If the road is followed on Good Friday 
night, the sense of tragedy, ever suggested by 
night, silence, and grim, shadow-kept walls, is 
deepened by the low voices of visitors who have re- 
sorted to Olivet to bless themselves with new sym- 
pathy for the midnight passion of our Lord. One 
does not make such pilgrimage in vain. It may 
not be that Jesus agonized in the garden sanctified 
by the Latins or upon the spot chosen by the Rus- 
sians for their church: yet somewhere near, the 
Master put His closest friends aside and fought 
His battle alone. I stood under the gnarled olive 
trees, looked across the narrow valley to the hushed 
city asleep within its walls, saw the huge hill where 
the Temple contemptuously had rejected Him, and 
it seemied that under one of those dimly outlined 
roofs the Master once more was setting forth to 
His cross-bearing. Again He came forth from the 
shadows of the city gates, came down past the tombs 
of Israel's ancient dead, crossed the dry channel of 
the Kidron, and came to me under the olive trees, 

"Clean forspent, 
Forspent with love and shame. " 

I sank to my knees unworthy of such company, 
and my soul poured forth in tumultuous, sobbing 
prayer for worthiness to watch with Him not only 

34 



x 

H 
O 

O 

hi 

< 



ALONE IN THE HOLY CITY 



in the night-mantled garden, but also in the 
shadows of a thousand forms of Christ-betrayals in 
our Western world. 

One Sunday afternoon I followed a footpath 
leading out of the northern suburbs across the rocky 
fields to the summit of Mt. Scopus, and then kept 
to the carriage road which winds along the crest 
of the Mount of Olives as far as the Russian build- 
ings. This mountain is precious with memories of 
Jesus. It may have been near the present Russian 
view-tower, where the path comes up past Geth- 
semane and across the ridge, and winds on to Beth- 
phage and Bethany, that Jesus was wont to sit, 
watching the city which would not have Him for 
king. As once He sat here, Peter and James, John 
and Andrew pressed their question of the proud 
city's humiliation. It was here His tears started 
over the hardness of Jewish hearts. It must have 
been over the same hillpath that He rode into the 
city, acclaimed Messiah by the frivolous multitude. 
Here in the brilliant sun, time, like distance, dwarfs 
till it seems that the Great Tragedy was of yester- 
day. Eastward the Dead Sea glitters, four thou- 
sand feet below and fifteen miles away, yet so near 
one fancies that a storm would awaken on Olivet 
echoes of salt-wave beats on the lifeless strand. So 
near that the voice almost carries across to the 
Temple area rises the city's gray walls and shin- 

85 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



ing roofs. So Christ seemed near, and all the 
wonder of Him pitting Himself against that city 
and apparently doomed to death as timeless as the 
bitter salt-sea. No man, at least it seems to me, 
can sit on Olivet as I sat that afternoon, looking 
down into the blue haze of the Jordan Valley, out 
across the wastes of the Judean wilderness, and 
unto the city clinging through centuries of catas- 
trophe to its barren mountains without worshiping 
that Master who alone draws men of all lands and 
times to the drear, barren, waterless, sunburnt 
ridges, to follow paths in which He walked, and to 
wonder at sites where He served and died. 

Wrapt in strange exaltation and craving aloof- 
ness from the world, I followed the path to Beth- 
phage. Some boys sought to guide me, but I heeded 
them not. Some sweaty, barefooted stonemasons, 
powdered with dust, working by the roadside, asked 
for baksheesh and tobacco, and probably cursed me 
as an ungenerous dog. A half mile from the sum- 
mit of Olivet stands a chapel of the Franciscans 
upon the probable site of Bethphage. Two or three 
monks greeted me kindly as I walked through the 
open door into their garden. It was a quiet, tiny 
place, out of sight of the city, and facing the 
rocky hills and the far stretch of wilderness. Soon 
the path divided, and I was uncertain of the way. 

36 



ALONE IN THE HOLY CITY 

Wandering dreamily through bare fields, patches 
of lentils, and under olive trees, and asking a 
passer-by, I clambered down the hillside and 
reached Bethany, a wretched village of two or three 
hundred Moslems. The Arab name of the village, 
El-Azariyeh, keeps alive the memory of Lazarus. 
No sooner was I in sight than boys, girls, and 
women hurried to guide me to the tomb of the 
saint. One boy, fifteen or sixteen, perhaps the son 
of the village sheikh, took me in charge, led me 
to the door of the Lazarus tomb, and ran for the 
key. He brought a girl, who carried the key, and 
lighted me down the steps to what was once a rock 
tomb. It may or may not have been the grave of 
Jesus' friend, but it brought home in a new way 
the human heart of Him who wept and groaned* 
prayed and triumphed in the long ago. 

My self-appointed guide led me to the ruins 
which tradition claims was the home of Mary and 
Martha, and to the crumbling tower, the last vestige 
of the house of Simon the Leper. They lie near 
each other in the tiny village, and certainly can not 
be far from the scenes of some of our Lord's most 
precious ministry. Climbing back to the rocky 
ridge behind the village, and remembering that 
Jesus led His disciples "out until they were over 
against Bethany," I felt that I was standing upon 

37 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



the place of the risen Lord's farewell. As they 
turned back to the city that Ascension day, with a 
clutch at the throat and pain stabbing the heart, 
the barren hill was mightily drear and gray. For 
me it was luminous with His presence. 

The Haram esh-Sherif, the second sacred spot 
of the Mohammedan world and the ancient site of 
the Temple, also may be visited alone. More than 
once I entered freely the great Temple area and 
wandered where I pleased. At the doors of the 
Aksa Mosque the boys taught me to say "Salaam 
alikum" ("Peace be with you"), and the reply, 
"AUJcum salaam" ("And with you, peace"). I 
climbed the walls and looked down upon the Hin- 
nom and the Kidron Valley and the distant tombs. 
I sat under the trees and brooded over the past. 
Solomon's Temple rose again over Araunah's thresh- 
ing-floor, and workmen of Tyre mingled with He- 
brew masons to create the glory of the Hebrew 
world; I saw it sink in ruins and rise again from 
Nebuchadrezzar's curse; I saw Nehemiah, stern, 
strong, exalted servant of Jehovah, fighting almost 
alone the battle for his ideal city, defend the walls, 
and purge the Temple ; I saw Herod, that strange, 
wonderful ruler, great enough in imperial dreaming 
to have sat on the throne of Rome, unfit by jealousy 
and cruelty to rule a village, stride across that 
Temple area and touch by magic of his genius 

38 



ALONE IN THE HOLY CITY 



the mean building of the exiles until the Temple 
rose again, the worship and the pride of the Jew; 
I saw the army of Titus encamped against the city, 
and his heathen horde break down the walls, dev- 
astate the Temple, and bear away in infamous 
hands its holy vessels of silver and gold; I saw 
the shades of all that was narrow, bigoted, and 
cruel in Jewish worship slink away from that ruined 
hill into the dead past, and I saw the shining forms 
of patriotism, devotion to God unto death, heroism 
which subdues passions of body to passions of soul, 
— the angel ideals of vanished Israel still guarding 
the top of Zion and blessing still those who had eyes 
and ears to see and hear. 

One morning I walked through the city from 
the Damascus to St. Stephen's gate, turned sharply 
to the right along the city wall, and entered a 
Mohammedan cemetery. Going on beyond the 
walled-up Golden Gate, the warm sun and the green 
slope tempted me to linger among the graves. 
There was no molestation from passing Moslems. 
Near the southeast corner of the city walls the hill 
grows narrow between the walls and the Kidron 
far below. Lying on the grass and looking down 
into the valley, I saw a group of tourists in front 
of the tomb of Absalom, and the dragoman's words 
floating up to echo so distinctly against the huge 
walls seemed a voice out of the mists of a distant 

39 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



world. Walking on around the south wall of the 
city, and climbing a high gate to get out of the 
cemetery, I kept close to the wall, passed through 
rubbish heaps, cultivated patches of ground, beside 
miserable shambles housing squalid families, and, 
turning north at the southwest corner of the city, 
followed the western wall to the Jaffa gate. Near 
one of the wretched hovels some children were play- 
ing. On catching sight of the stranger, they 
sprang instantly to their feet and clamored for 
baksheesh. One of the children was a mere baby, 
scarcely able to toddle, and yet his "baksheesh" 
was clearly cried. It must have been his first word. 

Setting out one afternoon from the Jaffa gate, 
I followed the highway to the Birket es-Sultan, once 
a vast reservoir built by damming the Hinnom Val- 
ley. It still contains water in its lower levels. I 
clambered down into the basin, got out on the op- 
posite side, came back again by the road which 
crosses the dam, and followed the road to Gehenna. 
The Valley of Hinnom, or the "Ge Ben Hinnom" 
— the valley of the son of Hinnom — as the He- 
brews called it, lent its name in late Jewish times 
to the place of punishment for the wicked dead. 
It has other somber associations. It was the scene 
of human sacrifices. 1 Detested by later Judaism 

»Jer. 7:31; 2 Kings 23:10. 

40 



ALONE IN THE HOLY CITY 

because of its defilement by heathen ritual, 2 it be- 
came the place of burning for the filth of the city, 
whose continual fires became such terrible imagery 
in the teaching of our Lord. The fair valley, rich 
with olive trees, seems unable to shake off its bad 
past: the carrion-picked bones of two mules under 
the trees raised their foul incense to heaven and 
provoked curses from the passers-by. The valley 
can be followed to its junction with the Kidron 
at Job's Well ; then turning northward, one passes 
up the latter valley between the village of Silwan 
and the city to the Virgin's Spring, and from 
thence past the tombs of Zechariah, St. James, and 
Absalom to St. Stephen's gate. 

These walks, taken alone, are the surest en- 
trance into the city's mystery. Jerusalem itself is 
a lonely city. No great natural highways passed 
her gates, no streams flowed within her walls. Set 
apart from the world's fullest life, on rough, bare 
hills, she had the rocks only for foundation and 
the sky for vision. Yet no city of the world is 
so lifted into immortality. Her greatest men lived 
alone. Who among their contemporaries under- 
stood Isaiah and Jeremiah? Who was worthy to 
walk into Nehemiah's soul? Who in the strangely 
misguided, foolish, fanatical, glorious, immortal 



«2 Chron. 28:3. 



41 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



city yet understands Him who shed His tears and 
His blood to make it the beginning of His King- 
dom? It is a solitary city, and lonely men have 
mantled it with glory, and those only who have 
found hours of loneliness mystic hours of commun- 
ion with the Heroic Invisible will see the ideal Je- 
rusalem. 



42 



IV 



FROM JERUSALEM TO THE JORDAN 

There is but one way to see Palestine. The tourist 
who can not ride horseback and sleep in tents ; who 
can not suffer thirst, hunger, and fatigue; who is 
unable to endure extremes of heat, rain, and cold; 
whose health demands a Western diet — will not be 
able to obtain a comprehensive view of Syria. 
There are few carriage roads in Palestine. No ade- 
quate impression of the land is obtainable by car- 
riage. The traveler must submit to the inconven- 
iences of a camping tour, or he will return from 
the Holy Land with partial and misf ormed concep- 
tions of the country and people. 

On the twenty-sixth of March our little com- 
pany, 1 guided by John the dragoman and Jebra 
the cook, set out from Jerusalem for a twenty- 
eight-day trip through Eastern and Northern Pal- 
estine. It is one of the double-starred mornings of 
my life. As we awoke, a little before six, the sun 
was on the point of climbing the hills east of Jeru- 
salem, and, looking across the red-tiled roofs of the 
modern city, it seemed that God had spread a crim- 

1 See Preface. 

43 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



son roof on Olivet and was expecting to meet us in 
morning worship somewhere down the slopes toward 
Jordan. 

We set out by the Damascus Road at half -past 
seven, and upon reaching the slope of Mt. Scopus, 
adjoining the Mount of Olives, upon whose sum- 
mit Titus encamped his army, we struck across 
country toward Anathoth, the birthplace of Jere- 
miah. The desolation which the prophet assured 
his fellow-townsmen would come upon them has re- 
duced Anathoth from whatever splendor it may 
have had in the past unto a squalid village on the 
hillside. Perhaps twoscore families still cling to 
the stony fields. There is only one field, containing 
perhaps fifteen acres of barley and olives, which, it 
seemed to us, a man of Jeremiah's wisdom would 
care to own. However, like many a modern 
preacher, he may not have been wise in business 
affairs. Passing a modern village, our route wound 
around the Geba of Benjamin, where Saul, when 
the Philistines came up against Israel, encamped 
his army. Across the deep ravine, far up the op- 
posite hill, stands Micmash, where the enemies of 
Israel were posted, and from which they were driven 
by the resoluteness of Jonathan and his armor- 
bearer. For those accustomed to the rough slopes 
of these Judean hills it is not difficult to drop down 
from Geba and climb to Micmash. But for two 

44 



FROM JERUSALEM TO THE JORDAN 



men, with the trembling Hebrew forces behind them, 
to climb the long, rocky ascent to Micmash in the 
face of a powerful enemy is a noteworthy achieve- 
ment in the annals of any people. 

For six hours longer we wound in and out the 
rough hills which gradually lead to the Jordan 
Valley. Sometimes the path was dim, and we struck 
across tiny barley fields; at times the descent was 
too steep to ride, and long walks were necessitated. 
Over paths of sharp stones, sliding down smooth 
rocks, and sometimes emulating Israel Putnam's 
leap, the descent from the lofty ridge of Judea 
was made into the plain. At one place the path was 
over a smooth rock near a precipice, and Jebra 
saved himself from a plunge of two hundred feet 
by leaping from his horse and holding it by the 
halter until others came up and assisted him to drag 
back to the path the horse, which had partly slidden 
over the edge. Leading our horses carefully by 
the bridle we slowly picked our way down through 
the rocks to the spring of Ain Duk. Looking back 
over the rocky mountain side, it seems incredible 
that either horses or men could make their way 
down the cliff. 

This spring pours forth from the hills a large 
volume of water, and makes fertile many miles of 
narrow fields lying lower down the hills toward 
Jericho. No ruins are near the spring of the Mac- 

45 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



cabean palace in which Simon met his death at the 
hands of his son-in-law. A far more peaceful scene 
met our eyes. A vast flock of goats, large-bodied 
and covered with long, black hair, came up to the 
spring and waited patiently until our horses had 
quenched their thirst. Not far from the spring the 
remains of a Roman aqueduct spanned the little 
valley, and across it the life-giving water yet flows 
to give drink to the thirsty fields. Shortly before 
reaching Old Jericho, in riding from Ain Duk 
there is to be seen a Greek monastery built high 
up the cliffs and frowning down upon the ancient 
city, whose mound is a mile distant. Near the path 
several of the brethren with donkeys waited to con- 
duct visitors to their fastnesses and the traditional 
site of the fasting and temptation of Jesus. 

The mound of Jericho lies egg-shaped, and 
rises twenty-five feet above the plain. Professor 
Sellin and the German Oriental Society have laid 
bare at a number of places the walls of the old city. 
Like all Hebrew ruins, they do not show very great 
architectural ability. Whatever strength they may 
have had in Canaanitish times, they naturally do 
not compare in magnificence and in ability to with- 
stand assault with the fortified cities of the Greeks 
and Romans. The houses were built of sun-dried 
bricks, and some of these are to be found in the 
ruins. The city which Joshua assaulted lay several 

46 



FROM JERUSALEM TO THE JORDAN 



miles from the Jordan, and its ruins are a mile dis- 
tant from the modern town. The old city was built 
beside a magnificent spring which here issues from 
the hills. Traditions do not always need a fountain 
to give them growth, but beside this spring a tra- 
dition of ancient growth is found. It is to the 
effect that these waters are those which Elisha 
healed with salt, and therefore they are known 
to-day as Elisha's Spring. 

The curious visitor, standing on the mound at 
Jericho, wonders why the city did not continue 
through the centuries. In spite of Joshua's curse, 
the city was rebuilt. The fertile valley demanded 
a market town. It was of sufficient importance to 
tempt Mark Antony, who presented the city to the 
covetous Cleopatra. This fair lady sold the place 
to Herod the Great, who embellished the city with 
his usual magnificence. Here he was carried from 
Machaerus to die. In the early Christian centuries 
Jericho was an episcopal residence. Yet neither 
Hebrew, Roman, Crusader, nor Mohammedan could 
here perpetuate his civilization. George Adam 
Smith has written the answer : "No great man was 
born in Jericho; no heroic deed ever was done in 
her. She has been called the key and the guard- 
house of Judea; she was only the pantry. She 
never stood a siege, and her inhabitants always 
were running away." We have the praise of Ju- 

47 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



dah's historian for Rahab, but if she was a typical 
citizen, the walls of her city could not long endure 
when its inhabitants began to betray their country- 
men. 

Modern Jericho is a dull, squalid village with 
approximately 400 population. Two or three 
hotels take care of the tourists who come by the 
carriage-road for a sight of the Jordan and the 
Dead Sea. One night spent here, which the trip 
requires, usually sends the visitor back to Jerusalem 
thirsty, tired, and flea-bitten. There is sufficient 
water and fertile soil to turn acres of badly- farmed 
and uncultivated fields into a sub-tropical garden. 
Herod the Great had his winter residence here, and 
with the hot springs across the sea, were there in- 
itiative to inaugurate improvements, the place once 
more might become an attractive resort for all 
Syria. 

It was nearly seven when we reached the J ordan 
Bridge. This is one of the two bridges which now 
cross the stream. This southern bridge is wooden, 
with rough, uneven floor, and latticed sides. It is 
quite narrow, and barely admits the crossing of 
a carriage. The western end is guarded by a gate 
which opens only on the payment of toll. The 
keeper lives near by, and he must respond at any 
hour of the day or night to the call of caravans 
and shepherds. 

48 



FROM JERUSALEM TO THE JORDAN 



Near the bridge on the western bank our camp 
was pitched. One of the tents flew the Turkish 
flag; the others were adorned with the Stars and 
Stripes. One of these American flags at some time 
must have become loosened from its staff, and the 
muleteers, not recognizing the difference, had 
fastened the field of blue downwards, so that our 
Glory was put to shame. The night found us too 
weary to remonstrate, and as the days went by it 
seemed not to have been weakened in its protecting 
power. The tents inside were decorated with Ori- 
ental designs and quotations from the Koran. The 
bare ground was covered with Oriental rugs. The 
sleeping-tents had four cots ranged round the sides, 
with mattresses, clean sheets, blankets, and white 
spread. A table covered with an embroidered cloth 
was placed by the tent-pole, and water was at hand 
for a clean-up. Our suit-cases stood beside our 
cots. An excellent dinner sent us all to bed content, 
though sore and weary beyond description. 



49 



V 



THE ROAD TO MEDEBA 

March 27th, "Awake, gentlemen !" was the cry of 
John, our dragoman, at five o'clock. The native 
part of our camp had been astir for an hour, so 
there were not many of the gentlemen who needed 
a second call. The stars and a half moon faintly 
lit the sky until they paled before the rising dawn. 
Down below the tents, the J or dan, hidden by bushes 
and small trees, rippled over a ledge; beyond the 
embowered river the mountains of Moab peered up 
through the gray twilight ; behind us the curiously- 
shaped marl cliffs of the wilderness, through which 
we had ridden the evening before, threw back from 
their white faces the breaking day. While we 
breakfasted, our Arabs far from silently folded the 
tents, and at seven we trotted across the quaint 
Jordan Bridge for the mountains of Eastern Pales- 
tine. This stream, like the Tiber, is muddy, but 
poetry not having seized upon it, its waters are not 
called yellow. Some very beautiful, though circum- 
scribed, views are obtained along its banks. During 
the spring months the bathing place is much sought 
by pilgrims of the Greek Church, who come to be 

50 



THE ROAD TO MEDEBA 



baptized in the robe which will be carefully pre- 
served for a shroud. 

Two hours of riding brought us to Tell Ramali, 
or Libyas. A tell is a hill, artificially constructed, 
on the slowly built-up mound of centuries of the 
debris which an Oriental town, ruined or inhabited, 
accumulates. These tells are often modern burial 
grounds. Tell Ramali has many Mohammedan 
graves. Across the plain, which here washes like a 
bay, back into the foothills, is Tell Kaufrain. A 
near view of the Jordan plain is obtainable from the 
deserted tell. Ramali was once an important town. 
It stood at the entrance to Medeba and the Naba- 
tean kingdom, whose capital was Petra, still re- 
markable in its ruins. Mt. Nebo, rising sharp 
above the eastern tableland, summoned us across 
the foothills and through the mountains to share 
Its view of the Promised Land. These lower hills 
of Moab were alive with black Bedouin tents, flocks 
of black goats and white sheep, and herds of camels. 
One scarcely can believe that the scant pasturage 
of these slopes will keep alive such vast numbers of 
animals. The camels are numberless. I counted 
one herd of two hundred, and herds were in every 
direction. They were young and old, black old 
fellows who had taken the lead of caravans, and 
white, fleecy babies wabbling after their mothers. 
Here and there among the herds were men, armed 

51 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



with rifles, some on foot and some clinging to the 
camel's back behind the hump, who had charge of 
them. 

It was a steady two hours and a half of climb- 
ing before the ridge was reached, where the heat of 
the Jordan Valley was tempered by the breezes over 
the mountains. In another hour of ascent and de- 
scent we reached the Ain Musa, or Springs of 
Moses. Here we parted from the boiled Jordan 
water, which we drank when thirsty during the 
morning ride, and filled the canteens with the clear 
water which issues from a cavern in the steep hill- 
side. No sooner had we quenched our thirst than 
some women from the cave-houses above the spring 
came down to do the family washing. The clothes 
were thrown into the water, and then the women 
trampled the garments with their bare feet. These 
women and girls, dark to blackness, were hideously 
tattooed upon the face. The chin and upper lip 
seem to be the favorite portions to be disfigured 
among all the Bedouin and village women of Pal- 
estine. Girls as young as seven or eight had begun 
to ornament themselves in this fashion. Three Arab 
gentlemen sat quite near us while we ate lunch, but 
we looked past them down the wady, with its steep 
rocks divided by a narrow ribbon of green pastur- 
age, to the Jordan Valley, the northern tip of the 

52 



THE ROAD TO MEDEBA 



Dead Sea, and the mountains of Judah stretching 
their mild outlines miles away in the blue haze. The 
Ain Musa issues from the mountain side 2,700 feet 
above the level of the Salt Sea. 

Everywhere the red anemone, the Lily of the 
Fields, and its fair imitator, the poppy, adorn the 
bare hills. Sometimes these flowers grow on the 
very path which we traveled. Other flowers of 
various hues compete with the field poppy for one's 
attention, but the deeply-dyed red of this flower 
ever retains the admiration. Birds are everywhere, 
and occasionally a pair of storks, not at all afraid 
of our straggling caravan, is seen. These birds are 
quite common, and because they feed upon lizards 
and field mice they never are molested by the fella- 
hin. When they rise in flight these birds start like 
an aeroplane, running a few paces until their wings 
catch the air as they soar away. They stop in simi- 
lar manner. They strike the ground, drop their 
wings, and run several steps until they come to rest. 

On the way to the Ain Musa at two places there 
were seen broken milestones with which the Romans 
marked the road to Medeba. Across the foothills 
of Moab we passed remains of the Roman aqueduct 
which carried the water from the mountains to 
Herod's fortress at Libyas, now Tell Ramali. The 
groove of the water channel is yet visible at several 

53 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



places. The aqueduct, unlike those near Rome, 
followed up and down the surface of the country- 
it traveled. 

After lunch the climb was begun from the 
Springs of Moses to Mt. Nebo. Over smooth, slip- 
pery rocks, natural stairways, and narrow fields as 
the summit drew near, our sure-footed horses zig- 
zagged along the mountains for an hour until the 
top of Nebo was reached. A magnificent panorama 
spread out westward. A fifth of the Dead Sea was 
visible. The western shore and the northern end 
of the sea lay smooth in the haze which caressed 
the hills. To the north the wide Jordan Valley re- 
ceded toward Galilee. Patches of green adorned 
the mountains to right and left. Here and there 
the black tents of Bedouin camps were posted on 
the slopes towards the valley. Across the Jordan 
rose the hills of Judah, and the two towers of Olivet 
marked the ridge behind which Jerusalem is se- 
cluded. Eastward the tableland of Moab circled 
out in wide areas of barren hilltops, separated by 
green pastures where camels grazed, and plowed 
fields where Bedouin farmers drove their ox-teams. 
Three barefooted, brown-legged, unshaven Arabs 
drew near to watch us gaze upon the scene which 
Israel's writings say Moses saw with great longing. 
One with a sword stood at my side as I wrote these 
lines. A fountain pen is more to him than the 

54 



THE ROAD TO MEDEBA 



scene which captivated the captain of the hosts of 
Israel. 

Turning inland from the mountain where Moses 
is said to have seen the land which he was not 
to enter, we rode over the arable upland for an 
hour and a quarter, when Medeba was reached. It 
lies in the midst of a vast, rolling tableland of 
green fields, and numerous flocks of goats and sheep 
and herds of camels. One squalid village of sun- 
dried bricks and stone harbors a Christian popu- 
lation of nearly 3,000, of whom the greater part 
are Greeks. The others are Latins. The country 
round about is owned by these townsmen, who em- 
ploy many Mohammedans to till their land and to 
keep their flocks. Medeba is an old town. The Book 
of Joshua, in its partition of the conquered land, 
assigns it to the Reubenites. But Israel never 
really possessed it, at least until the time of David. 
According to the Moabite Stone the town belonged 
to Israel in the reign of Omri. Once more it was 
Israelitish territory under that energetic Maccabee, 
John Hyrcanus. 

The head of the Latin monastery showed us over 
the convent and the new church which is in process 
of building. Then he led us to one of the dirty, 
squalid houses of the village to see a fine mosaic 
in the floor which dates from the fourth Christian 
century. At another dwelling the seeker of an- 

55 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



tiquities passes through a filthy stable, through a 
small court, to a house whose present floor is the 
pavement of an ancient church. Here are to be 
seen fragments of ancient columns built into the 
walls, and a large mosaic, with an inscription to 
the Virgin Mary. In the first mosaic mentioned, 
after the owner of the house had done his best to 
clean the floor, appeared storks, birds in bush, birds 
in the nest, and gazelles. These and other animals 
and the busts of women were worked into the pat- 
tern of the fragment of church pavement. 

The most famous of these early mosaics is in 
the floor of the modern Greek church, which is 
built upon the foundation of a sixth-century ba- 
silica. Here are to be seen fragments of a fine 
mosaic map, the oldest such map in the world. 
Originally the map showed the country from Lower 
Egypt to the northern end of Palestine. It locates 
the Dead Sea and the Jordan flowing into it. Fish 
are shown in the stream. A boat is on the sea with 
its masts in the shape of a cross, along whose hori- 
zontal arm a serpent is entwined, a symbol of the 
healing power of Christianity. Bethabara is lo- 
cated on the western side of the Jordan near the 
sea, and Gilgal is shown near its present traditional 
site. The most interesting feature of the mosaic 
is the plan of Jerusalem. From the Damascus 
Gate a street lined with columns on each side reaches 

56 



THE ROAD TO MEDEBA 



nearly across the city from north to south. A 
second street, arched on its eastern side with col- 
umns, sweeps in a semicircle from the Damascus 
gate past the Temple area. St. Stephen's gate 
appears, and perhaps the Golden Gate. The walls 
of the city and Church of the Holy Sepulcher are 
given clearly. While we were studying this map 
a number of boys who had kept us company 
through the town in some way annoyed the priest 
who had let us into the church. He ran them out 
of the church, and more than one who could not 
escape him were lashed severely with the whip which 
he carried in his hand. Crusader and Roman coins 
are found here, and are to be had at a cent apiece. 

As one passes through the dirty, narrow, un- 
paved streets, and enters the stuffy, squalid houses, 
though built of stone, the wonder comes that such 
a town §hould be fought over by Moabites, He- 
brews, Nabateans, and Romans, or that it ever was 
important enough to be the seat of a Christian 
bishopric. The area covered by the buildings and 
their insignificant appearance forbids the feeling 
that the place to-day is important, or in the past 
could have been a so pivotal post. Yet the town 
is one of the few Palestinian cities which through 
the centuries has changed neither its name nor its 
location. It rises on a low hill in the midst of a 
plain, yet none of the vicissitudes and tragedies 

57 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



of history have swept the place from its moorings. 
The explanation is twofold. In the past, when the 
Nabatean kingdom flourished at Petra, and the 
caravan route from Egypt and Arabia to Syria 
was important, Medeba was built upon this great 
highway of communication before it dropped down 
the Moabite Mountains into the Jordan Plain. 
The town is important still because it lies in the 
midst of a great fertile plain, and furnishes a mar- 
ket for multitudes of farmers and shepherds. From 
the camp of Medeba, our first comprehensive sweep 
of the Moabite tableland, it is easy to understand 
why Elimelech left his stony Bethlehem fields to 
dwell in the fertile territory of Moab. The wonder 
is that any member of his family should care to 
leave what must have been a veritable garden in 
comparison with the rocky hills of Judah. 

Our dragoman applied to the vice-governor of 
Medeba for a guard of soldiers to watch our tents 
and accompany us to Machasrus. He said that he 
had no orders from the governor at Jerusalem. 
John replied that the fault was not ours, since we 
had the governor's promise to telegraph the order 
before our arrival. The vice-governor answered 
that he had but one soldier, that the post had but 
four, and three of these had been dispatched to 
quell some disturbance among neighboring Bed- 
ouins. We had met these three earlier in the after- 

58 



THE ROAD TO MEDEBA 



noon. John assured him that we were going to 
Machaerus, and if he permitted us to go without 
a guard, he would be held responsible for any 
trouble which might arise. The vice-governor 
yielded and sent his entire army of one soldier to 
our camp. No doubt he felt himself the com- 
mander-in-chief. John succeeded, also, in finding 
an armed Bedouin, well recommended, and living 
in the territory which we wished to traverse. The 
soldier was to accompany the baggage, and the 
Bedouin to guide us. As we went to dinner he was 
to be seen leaning on his long rifle near the cook's 
tent, whose fire threw into the light the cartridge 
belt round his waist. His name is Owdi. Finally 
the visitors left off watching our actions and went 
home to bed, and gave us the reasonable quiet of 
our own restless muleteers, which soon sent us into 
slumber. 



59 



VI 



A DAY WITH HEROD THE GREAT 

Again at seven we set out from Medeba for the 
long journey to Machaerus. The morning broke 
on the wide-rolling plain to the north and east of 
Medeba, over which in every direction shepherds 
were leading their sheep and goats. One shepherd 
carried a young lamb in his bosom. After a ride 
of an hour and a quarter, the rocky summit of 
Tell Ma 5 an was reached, where, according to Euse- 
bius, Elisha was born. It is a tiny, wretched as- 
semblage of stone-walled huts, but the large stones 
and deep cisterns evidence an ancient site. Fifty 
minutes over rougher country brought us to the 
steep pyramidal hill which the Arabs call "The 
Place of Standing Stones." Here are to be found 
many dolmens. Those most perfect consist of two 
roughly -hewn stones, four or five feet high, two 
feet thick, and nine to ten feet in length, placed 
side by side four feet apart. These are covered 
by a flat rock, and the ends are enclosed by two 
pieces which fit in between the side and top stones. 
A smooth stone makes the floor. This gives an en- 

60 



A DAY WITH HEROD THE GREAT 



closure about six feet long, four feet wide, and four 
and a half feet high. While we examined these 
burial places, measuring and photographing them, 
two curious Bedouins armed with rifles, followed 
us and watched us closely. No doubt they 
thought us in search of treasure. Our Bedouin 
guide informed us that he had once been here 
with another party who had opened a well-pre- 
served dolmen. It contained bones, rings, and a 
tear-bottle. These dolmens were used as tombs, 
and indicate the care with which earlier generations 
of Moab interred their dead. 

An hour and a quarter from this most inter- 
esting hillside brings the rider to the brink of the 
Wady Zerka, but he must ride beside it for an- 
other hour before the bottom is reached, with its 
refreshing waters in a stream eight feet wide, flow- 
ing between high cliffs. Another three-fourths 
hour of climbing brought us to the top of the 
ravine, and lunch in the almost shadeless shrubbery 
beside a shallow gully. It was so hot that the per- 
spiration started at the least exercise. Occasionally 
the breeze got through the hills, and a thin cloud 
sometimes veiled the sun to temper the heat to 
our northern skins. The thermometer stood at 86 
in the shade at lunch-time. A little after two we 
began to ride across a rolling tableland, cut up by 
gullies which ran down to the Wady Zerka. A 

61 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



most precipitous path leads down to the bottom of 
the ravine, to the hot springs which here issue 
from the northern side of the gorge. The springs 
are called by the Arabs "Hammanez Zerka," and 
are perhaps to be identified with the "Callirrhoe" 
of the days of Herod the Great. Here then the 
monarch, sick unto death, was borne down from his 
mountain fastness at Machasrus for help in their 
healing waters; but to no avail. He was carried 
on to Jericho to die. 

Where the hot waters drop into the stream is 
formed a pool, into which bathers may plunge. 
A little lower down the gorge one of the springs 
tumbles over a cliff in a tiny waterfall. The waters 
are said to be 145 degrees in temperature, but the 
pool in which we bathed registered but 113 degrees. 
The waters are abundant, and actually raise the 
temperature of the wild, beautiful gorge down 
which they hurry to the Dead Sea. When Jericho 
again becomes a winter residence, sanitariums will 
once more dot the banks of this stream. 

At three we began the long, difficult climb out 
of the wady to the top of the mountains upon 
whose summits once stood Machserus. Much of the 
way walking was necessary. The horses toiled up 
the precipitous paths, and when riding, had the 
girth broken or the horse slipped, some broken 
bones or even a roll down the slopes to death must 

62 



A DAY WITH HEROD THE GREAT 



have occurred. After two hours of riding, com- 
pared with which the ascent of a stairway in a 
house would have been easy, a nose of land was 
reached which projected far out toward the Dead 
Sea. The mountains of Judah became visible, and 
Olivet was plainly discerned. The path next partly 
descended this mountain to reach a point of ad- 
vantage from which to rise higher still. Even at 
this low point the ravine, not the Wady Zerka, 
dropped precipitately so far that a Washington 
Monument built at the bottom of the gorge would 
not have towered above the path which crept along 
two or three feet from this yawning pit of death. 
It took yet a third hour of climbing to bring us 
to Machserus, whose ruins now crown the high 
points of this district of Moab. 

Just as we alighted from our horses the sun 
sank behind the mountains of Judah, illuminating 
them for miles north and south of Jerusalem. Here 
again Olivet lies in sight, and the towers which 
crown its summit are clearly limned against the 
fading rose of the west. We camped three or four 
miles from the Salt Sea, but its silver sheen was 
spread out in fanlike patches through the gullies 
leading down from the heights. Directly in front 
of the ruins of the town, between them and the sea, 
stands the sharply-outlined hilltop where Herod's 
fortress stood. 

63 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

It was Alexander Janneus, at about 90 B. C, 
who built the place to hold the territory which he 
had wrested from the Moabites. The Romans sent 
a force against it under Gabinius, who destroyed 
the post. It was rebuilt by Herod the Great, and 
upon his death it fell to Herod Antipas, his son. 
To this fortress Antipas permitted his first wife, 
the daughter of Aretas, whose Nabatean capital 
was Petra, to withdraw when he was weary of her. 
From this prison she escaped to her father, who pre- 
pared to avenge the insult. Antipas, with splen- 
did generalship, advanced to Machasrus to meet 
him. He brought with him his new wife, Herodias, 
and her daughter Salome. This shameful marriage 
having aroused the bitter condemnation of John 
the Baptist, led to Herod's silencing the bold voice 
which reproved him. 

Though there are higher summits in the neigh- 
borhood, this hill, because of its isolation, was 
chosen to be fortified. It was Herod's frontier post 
to the south in Eastern Palestine. It is cut off 
from other mountains by valleys on every side. On 
the southeast a low narrow ridge connects Machae- 
rus with the other summits. Along this ridge the 
remains of a fortified road yet are to be seen. 
Somewhere in the dungeons of this mountain fort- 
ress, John, sorely troubled, not by Herod's perse- 
cution, but by the apparent inactivity of the Mes- 

64 



I 



A DAY WITH HEROD THE GREAT 



siah, whom he so ardently had championed, was held 
prisoner until the wiles of Herodias gave him a 
liberty of whose freedom she never dreamed. 

At fifteen minutes of six in the morning I 
stepped forth from our tent and sat down upon 
one of the stone blocks of the ancient town. The 
sun was at the point of peering above the range 
of Moab hills. Three lonely trees stood forth upon 
the crest of the hills, sentinels guarding the ap- 
proaches from the desert to the sea. In a few 
moments the sun, heralded by the red glow of day- 
break, took his station on the mountains, drove the 
shadows out of Wady Zerka to the north, gave life 
to the ripples which played upon the sea, and 
sounded the assembly for every Arab village from 
Beersheba to Mt. Hermon. 

About three-fourths of a mile from the ruins 
of the town rises the site of Herod's fortress. On 
the side of the hill, halfway to the summit, is a 
great cistern, extending directly into the hillside. 
It is twenty feet wide, eighty-seven feet long, and 
at least thirty-five feet high at its furthermost end, 
where the debris is least accumulated. It has been 
cemented, and must have supported a large garri- 
son with its water. The top of the hill, still quite 
level, shows remains of the fortifications. They 
cover an area somewhat elliptical, though corners 
are very discernible. The longer diameter is ap- 

65 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



proximately ninety-five yards, the shorter seventy- 
five. There is no evidence that the blocks of stone 
were quarried on the hill. Some of them are 
42 x 30 x 20 inches. The wall at the corner where 
these stones were measured is four feet thick. Near 
the center of the area there are the remains of a 
pit which may have been either a cistern or a dun- 
geon, or even both. It is forty feet in length 
and eighteen feet wide. The depth can not be told 
until the debris is removed. This is the only place 
in the fortress area, now uncovered, which might 
have been used as a dungeon. Here, with much 
probability, the great Jewish evangelist was held 
captive, and from here he sent his disciples to ascer- 
tain the truth from Him whom he so earnestly had 
proclaimed. Near this pit a most brilliant patch 
of anemones nodded in the wind, and we plucked 
and wore them in memory of this brave martyr to 
righteousness. 

From this hill one of the magnificent Moabite 
views is obtained. The sea lies perhaps two miles 
away, and far beyond the sea, lying dead in the 
calm which its low surface creates, rises the barren 
wilderness of Judea, which possesses at this distance 
an almost level outline throughout its whole length. 
Engedi, with its little clump of foliage, clings close 
to the sea to the south, and somewhat to the north 
the buildings on Olivet mark the site of the Holy 
City. 66 



A DAY WITH HEROD THE GREAT 



At nine, with a soft breeze blowing over the 
tableland of Moab, we mounted our horses and 
rode away from the ruins, where the night had been 
spent, and parted regretfully from the place where 
the stormy, masterful, bitter career of Herod 
crossed so tragically the life of that Judean fore- 
runner with whom Christian history ever must be 
full of sympathy. After an hour of riding over 
a rolling tableland, partly cropped with low stone- 
covered hills, and partly decked with green barley- 
fields, our guide was hailed from across a wady 
and told that he was on the wrong road. It took 
a half hour to scramble down the pathless mountain 
past a Bedouin camp, into the bottom of the small 
ravine, Heidan, which we followed until it de- 
bouched into the Wady Weli. We crossed the dry 
channel of the brook many times. Stubby, gnarled 
turpentine trees grew along its banks ; some of them 
stood in the very bed of the brook and recalled the 
psalm : 

He shall be like a tree planted by the water courses, 
Which bringeth forth its fruit in its season; 
Its leaf also doth not wither. 

Sometimes the path lifted two and three hun- 
dred feet above the bed of the channel, and offered 
many an opportunity to take a false step and 
plunge to death. The scenery was very grand. As 

67 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



we wound down into the Wady Weli, the mountains 
towered above us more magnificently than the Penn- 
sylvania peaks overtop the ravines through which 
the railroads pass. It was noon when we reached 
the stream of the Wady Weli, and after a bath all 
round, lunch was served. We missed the usual 
boiled eggs, since the mule which carried them fell 
down and broke the camp's entire supply. 

At two we began the climb out of the hot wady 
down which scarcely a breath of air was stirring, 
and sought the tableland nearly opposite the mouth 
of the Wady Heidan. No one who has not made 
such a climb will believe that mules and donkeys 
heavily laden with baggage, and horses weighted 
with their riders and saddlebags, could ascend the 
heights which here tower above the brook. No path 
was to be seen as we looked at the face of the cliffs. 
Yet up we climbed, scrambling over the hillsides, 
leaping from shelf to shelf, winding along a nar- 
row ledge so near the precipice that one foot to 
the right would have dashed us to death, between 
huge boulders which ever seemed ready to plunge 
down the mountain side, until suddenly we emerged 
from the rocks and stood on the margin of a vast 
rolling tableland of pasturage and barley-fields, 
over which meadow-larks gayly were singing and 
the blue sky was smiling. 

68 



A DAY WITH HEROD THE GREAT 

Over this plain we rode, in which oxen were 
drawing the plow, and over which camels and don- 
keys were bearing their various loads, until three- 
fourths of an hour brought us to the site of ancient 
Dibon. 



69 



vn 



AT MOAB'S CAPITAL 

Dibon is now only two hill summits covered with 
the ruins of fallen houses and broken cisterns. 
Once it was fair enough for Gad to covet, and it 
was numbered among the tribe's possessions. In 
Isaiah's day it was repossessed by Moab, and was 
prosperous enough to draw its share of his denun- 
ciation. Here was a High Place, one of those 
numerous shrines which Israel encountered in her 
possessions, and whose forms of worship she in- 
evitably imitated, but for which in the rich spiritual 
consciousness of the prophets she was so harshly 
censured. "We have heard of the pride of Moab," 
says Isaiah, and as Moab came to know the barren- 
ness of the mountains of Judah, often must she 
have raised the boast of her own fertility. Again 
and again must the residents of Judah have fol- 
lowed the example of Elimelech, and left the barren 
hills of Bethlehem and Jerusalem to seek sustenance 
upon the fertile uplands of Moab. Moab still sur- 
prises one with its fertility, though it has changed 
since Isaiah's day. One rides for miles without 

70 



AT MOAB'S CAPITAL 



seeing a city or village. Isaiah's words are richly 
descriptive : 

In the vineyards there shall be no singing, 
No treader shall tread out wine in the presses ; 
I have made the vintage shout to cease. 

We have ridden three days in Moab and we 
have seen no vineyards and heard no singing; we 
have beheld only the broken stones of ancient 
presses, and heard the hoarse shout of Bedouin 
shepherds on the hillsides. 

A Bedouin camp is a simple affair. A long 
strip of black goat's-hair cloth supported by poles 
held upright by long cords, and enclosed usually 
at one side and the ends by strips of similar cloth, 
compose the Bedouin dwelling place. A camp is 
composed of three to forty such tents. In the 
larger tents a woman's apartment is shut off from 
observation by the same black cloth. The cooking, 
churning, and bread-baking are done outside the 
tent. Churning is a very interesting sight. A 
goat's skin is filled with milk, and the skin swung 
beneath a tripod made of poles, and the housewife, 
seated upon the ground, barelegged and dirty, with 
goats, children, dogs, and chickens about her as 
unwashed as herself, jerks the skin back and forth 
until the curd is thick enough to be molded into 
cakes. Many of these men are well-to-do in herds 

71 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



as well as in wives and children 5 and their days 
are spent in visiting. The women wear their hair 
braided, and these braids are neve* coiled upon their 
heads. The head must be free to carry burdens. 
The donkey and woman are the patient burden- 
bearers of Syria. 

At this place should be set down some reflec- 
tions about the camp in general and the donkey in 
particular. There are twenty-two animals in the 
caravan. The horses and mules are small, poor, 
underfed, sore-backed, mouths cut by bridles, bellies 
scarred by girths, and ankles bleeding; yet these 
animals will plod all day without food and water, 
climb precipitous ascents, trot briskly over rough 
hillsides, walk sure-footed beside dizzy ravines, 
stand all night tethered by hoof and halter, and 
start refreshed at the opening of another day. Our 
donkey shows other signs of life. He is scarcely 
four feet high, but he carries a load heavier than 
himself, and in the night rejoices at the fun of 
life. He has discovered the lost "High Places" of 
Dibon, and lifts his song of praise beside these 
ancient altars of Moab. At least we give his un- 
ceasing braying this generous interpretation. The 
English lark has won poetical praise for the mar- 
velous volume of her voice. This Jerusalem donkey 
awaits a Shelley to recite in musical numbers his 
ability to awaken the morning twilight echoes of 

72 



A Bedouin Woman. 



AT MOAB'S CAPITAL 



the hills of Moab, If this expedition were not un- 
der the direction of an archaeologist, perhaps some 
humble member of the party might embalm his 
glory in unforgettable if not immortal verse. 

Dibon, the capital of the once powerful Moabite 
kingdom, brings to mind the long rivalry and nu- 
merous conflicts of Israel with the land of Chemosh, 
the protecting deity of Mesha, who never will be 
dislodged from Moab's temple of fame. Hebrew 
and Moabite were kinsmen in blood, language, and 
religious conceptions, and there must have been 
long periods when the want of pasturages did not 
necessitate hostile raids. In those years of out- 
lawry when David was battling for his life with 
Saul and was waiting for his kingdom, he placed 
his parents under the protection of the king of 
Moab. At times the rich uplands of Moab were 
payers of tribute to the kings of Israel. Such 
was Mesha, king of Moab, in the ninth century 
B, C. Ahab compelled him to send across the 
Jordan to Samaria, says the writer of 2 Kings, 
the wool of a hundred thousand lambs and of a 
hundred thousand rams. 

Such vassalage was bitter, and upon Ahab's 
death Mesha asserted his independence. Jehoram, 
who began to reign in 842, sought to reassert Is- 
rael's authority across the Jordan. With the king 
of Judah his ally, and some Edomite recruits, he 

73 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



marched around the southern end of the Dead Sea, 
drove Mesha southward across the Arnon and shut 
him up in Kir-hareseth. Mesha, desperate through 
an unsuccessful sortie, sacrificed his eldest son upon 
the walls of the city to appease the anger of Che- 
mosh, his god. The appeal, apparently, was not in 
vain. Mesha drove back his enemies, won again his 
raided cities and pasturages, and achieved his inde- 
pendence. No one will blame him that he set up 
a memorial stone at Dibon to commemorate his vic- 
tories. 

This "Moabite Stone" was discovered among 
the ruins of the two hills of the ancient capital in 
1868 by a representative of the Church Missionary 
Society. When the Arabs began to suspect its 
worth, they broke it up in order that, as they sup- 
posed, the fragments might sell for more than the 
undamaged stone. The restored stone, now in the 
Louvre at Paris, ranks high among the extra- 
Biblical writings in its portrayal of Palestinian life. 
If Mesha's triumph over Israel occurred after he 
had sacrificed his son in a burnt-offering to Che- 
mosh, one can sympathize with the victory which 
made the monument possible. 

I made this High Place of Chemosh be- 
cause He caused me to see my desire upon 
all that hated me. 



74 



AT MOAB'S CAPITAL 



Chief of these enemies was the king of Israel. 

But I saw my desire upon him and Israel 
perished forever. 

Israel has not perished forever, and neither has 
Mesha, who did not hesitate, in the crisis of his 
kingdomi, to place his dearest treasure upon the 
altar of his god. 

We spent some time wandering over the ruins 
of Dibon. They are spread over two neighboring 
hills. The western hill at least was fortified, and 
clear traces of the walls sweep round the hill. Cis- 
terns, now in ruins, abound in the enclosure. Some 
of these cisterns serve as granaries. On the summit 
of the hill, beside a cistern used as a storehouse for 
grain, two Bedouins were winnowing wheat. Cloth 
was spread upon the ground, and at one side was 
heaped the winnowed grain, and on the other side 
of the cloth the heap of mixed wheat and chaff. A 
large pan resembling a dishpan was filled from the 
heap and held aloft on the top of the winnower's 
head. The contents were slowly poured from the 
pan, and the wind blowing over the hillstop swept 
aside the chaff, while the grain fell at the Bedouin's 
feet. We fell into the mood of the First Psalm 
and prayed that we, in God's winnowing, might 
not be 

Like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 
75 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



At eight we started across the upland plain, 
whose fertility once excited the admiration of Gad. 
To the south the chasm of the Arnon cut the table- 
land; to the north the Wady Weli fenced in the 
plains of Dibon ; to the west the Sea of Death, with 
its rough ascent, and eastward the desert, equally 
void of life, set the wide boundaries of this rolling 
plain. At eleven in the forenoon we came to the 
ruins of Umm-er-Rasas, a city on the edge of the 
wilderness. They show that the town once pos- 
sessed strong walls, a church, and many arched 
buildings. Near the town stood a tower and cis- 
terns hewed out of the solid rock. As we rode 
through this wilderness the only vegetation was a 
tiny shrub something like sagebrush, and thinly 
scattered blades of brown grass. Yet there were to 
be seen larks, storks, foxes, and gazelles. At many 
places were seen also the stone circles which the 
Bedouins place in their tents as a low platform 
for their beds. Once in passing a camp we saw 
such circles filled with the low thorn-bushes which 
grow profusely, and on these bushes their blankets 
were spread. 

Evidently earlier in the season the rains pro- 
duced enough vegetation to tempt the wandering 
flocks of these shepherds far out toward the desert. 
For an hour we had the novel experience of riding 
through rain, and the dampness was compensated 

76 



AT MOAB'S CAPITAL 



by the cooling of the air. During the long ride 
from eight in the morning until six in the evening 
only once was water seen, and this was found in 
stagnant pools in the bed of a wady, where the 
warm horses drank in spite of the scent and tad- 
poles. Our Bedouin guide, on coming up to a shep- 
herd, asked for a drink of milk. The request was 
granted. The keeper of the flock caught a goat 
by the horns. John held her, and Owdi milked her, 
and both enjoyed the warm, fresh drink. Two 
other goats were caught to supply other thirsty 
members of the party. 

At sunset we rode into Jizeh, a station on the 
narrow-gauge railway from Damascus to Medina. 
Three trains are scheduled in each direction three 
times a week. As we entered the miserable village 
a train consisting of two freight cars and two pas- 
senger cars passed southward into the desert. Jizeh 
is a wretched village on the edge of the desert. Our 
cook could get no water in the village. Some sol- 
diers stationed here took mercy on us and shared 
the water caught in a distant cistern. The natives 
use a large pool 110 x 125 yards and 25 feet deep, 
built with solid masonry. It was made some years 
ago, before the railway was constructed, and was 
used as a station on the pilgrimage to Mecca. 
Only some stagnant water, muddy from bathers 
and green with scum, was found in it at our visit, 

77 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



With this filthy water the animals had to be satisfied 
until another day. 

At seven we mounted the horses and rode 
through the desolate village for half an hour. In 
the midst of the irregular town there are being 
built into a new mosque some broken Roman col- 
umns which the natives have unearthed near this 
village. Near by a woman was churning. Just 
above her, on the roof of her house, a girl thirteen 
or fourteen years of age was spreading out the 
cakes of dung mixed with chaff, which, when sun- 
dried, provide fuel to cook their meals. This is a 
continual sight in all the villages of Palestine. 
Women with baskets follow animals on the road, 
and in many places visited our camp to supply their 
households with the precious fuel. There is no 
more pitiful sight in Palestine than the women en- 
gaged in such filthy tasks. The dung-heap is one 
of the most striking sights of their villages. They 
raise their unsightly piles and unbearable stench 
in the very doorway of the houses where women 
work, children play, and men smoke and gamble. 

An hour's ride to the northeast of Jizeh carried 
us to Meshita. This is the ruins of a Persian palace 
fortress of the eighth century A. D. The building 
was nearly three hundred yards square and had a 
strong tower at each corner and five towers inter- 
vening on each side. It stood nearly at the boun- 

78 



AT MOAB'S CAPITAL 



dary of the wilderness and the desert. Its location, 
together with that of Dibon, Jizeh, and like towns 
in the wilderness, indicates that in an earlier day 
the country was more fertile and supported a larger 
population; under present conditions there is no 
call for walled cities at Medeba, Machaerus, Dibon, 
Heshban, and other sites of Moabitish life. Yet 
no fairer country than this tableland exists. At 
places it is covered with flocks and herds of sheep, 
goats, and camels. At one point during the ride 
from Meshita to Amnion, eight large flocks with 
their shepherds were counted on the hills. The 
wheat was a foot high and was predictive of large 
crops. If this country between the desert and the 
Dead Sea were tapped with wells, it might be trans- 
formed into one of the richest farm countries of 
the world. Some day, when the English have es- 
tablished their protectorate over Palestine, this old 
land, now bare of cities and echoing only to the 
cries of wandering Bedouins, once again shall blos- 
som with towns, and trade routes called to life by 
the magic of industry will yet guide into this back 
edge of the world, as they used to do, peoples of 
many lands. 




VIII 



WHERE URIAH THE HITTITE DIED 

On the way to Amnion we stopped for lunch beside 
a ruined tomb of large proportions, called by the 
natives "Kirbet Sok." There is no village near, 
and the tomb, whose foundations are well preserved, 
stands undisturbed by avaricious builders. Not far 
from the tomb are the ruins of a temple. Two 
columns with capitals are yet standing. The temple 
covered an area approximately 75 x 100 feet. Por- 
tions of the wall are in position, and heaps of stone 
and dirt show something of the temple's ancient 
proportions. Beside the wall four Bedouins, who 
watched us lunch and followed us to the temple 
ruins, posed with their swords and pistols for their 
pictures. They seemed highly honored and greatly 
amused. 

On reaching the descent into the wady, where 
Rabboth Amnion once crested the hills and now 
clusters along the valleys, we passed a Mohammedan 
engaged in his devotions. With his face toward 
Mecca, his lips moving in prayer, his hands folded 
across his breast or resting upon the ground in his 
prostrations, he appeared so withdrawn from the 

80 



WHERE URIAH THE HITTITE DIED 



world that the usual curiosity of the Oriental did 
not interrupt his worship at our approach. He 
had slipped his sandals off his feet and turned his 
face toward his holy city, and thereby had fash- 
ioned for himself a house of prayer. 

We came down from the tableland and the cold 
wind, which had been blowing the greater part of 
the day into the old town of many memories. The 
little valley, along which the modern houses are 
intermingled with ancient ruins, carries in its lowest 
width a shallow brook from ten to twenty-five feet 
across. Narrow fields border the stream, and these 
are enclosed by high hills. The modern town is 
mostly Circassian. These foreigners have been 
brought from the shores of the Black Sea to this 
distant post to form a bulwark against the Bed- 
ouins, who ever have some antipathy to the govern- 
ment. On our way to Ammon, some Bedouins, tak- 
ing our little troop for soldiers, had a couple of 
shots at us from a distant hill. The bullets struck 
about one hundred yards from us, and the soldier 
who guided us hurried us under the shoulder of a 
hill. These Circassians have brought with them 
their two-wheeled ox-carts, and these are the only 
wheeled vehicles in Palestine, apart from those 
towns which in recent years have carried on a trade 
in tourists. The wheels are solid, and when the cart 
is loaded they squeak and groan as if in great 
6 81 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

agony. The Circassians themselves are tall, wel] 
built, and fearless in appearance. They build bet- 
ter houses than the natives, and have better shops, 
and cultivate the fields to better advantage. In re- 
ligion they are Mohammedans. 

The ancient city was built upon the isolated 
hill rising from two hundred and fifty to three hun- 
dred feet above the little stream on its northern 
bank. It was the capital of the Ammonites. Here 
Joab, leading the hosts of Israel, encamped beneath 
its walls. 

Here Uriah, the Hittite, was foully done to 
death. Here David came to receive the golden 
crown of the fallen Ammonitish king. By the time 
of Jeremiah the Ammonites had recovered their an- 
cient capital, and they drew from him the predic- 
tion that their richly situated city should become 
a desolate heap. Then the Greeks, under Ptol- 
emy II of Egypt, brought their yoke and their 
civilization. Later the Romans made the place one 
of their chief outposts against the desert, adorned 
the city with baths, a street lined with columns, an 
odeum, and a vast amphitheater seating 6,000 spec- 
tators. This theater is in excellent preservation. 
It rises high upon the hillside, looks north, and 
from its seats the citadel which crowned the op- 
posite hill was in clear view. Half-way to the top 
of the amphitheater there are covered passageways, 

82 



WHERE URIAH THE HITTITE DIED 



from which stairs ascend to the topmost tiers of 
seats. 

The fortifications enclosed an area of approxi- 
mately twenty-five acres. At the northwest and 
northeast corners there is still a height of thirty 
to thirty-five feet of solid masonry. The citadel 
was built upon three levels. The lowest terrace lies 
toward the east. Remains of a temple, courts, 
gates, and pavement are distinctly visible, and show 
both the strength of the fortifications and the im- 
portance of the post to those who struggle to main- 
tain and enlarge the borders of the empire. One 
is impressed here, more than at Rome, with the 
spirit of her emperors. The fact of such vast and 
varied buildings at one of hundreds of her outposts 
reveals, more vividly than the ruins of the capital, 
the imperial policy, the range of resources, and 
the dogged persistence of the kingdom of the 
Csesars. 

Here again the visitor is impressed with the de- 
generacy of the times. Ammon, compared with her 
Moabite neighbors, is well watered. The "City of 
Waters" the Hebrews called the town. Under the 
encouragement of a wise government the little val- 
leys might become many times more fruitful, and 
the hilltops, the scenes of so many ancient struggles, 
spring up again with splendid buildings. Its pres- 
ent inhabitants do not even preserve the simple 

83 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



grandeur of the ancient monuments. For them the 
magnificent arches and walls of the Greeks and 
Romans are but common quarries for house and 
stable. Unless some strong hand is soon out- 
stretched to preserve these ruins, within a few years 
they will have disappeared in the commonplace Cir- 
cassian buildings, which will attract no more the 
visitor from distant lands. 

The rain set in early in the morning of April 
1st. There was no opportunity for pictures, and 
we rode away from this city of memories through 
mist and cloud. The tableland of Moab gives place 
to broken country in Ammon. For six hours we 
rode through cold rain and occasional bursts of 
sunlight over rough hills and winding valleys to 
Es-Salt. It was a disagreeable day, relieved oc- 
casionally by strangely beautiful views of distant 
sunlit hills from the midst of driving rain. At 
Es-Salt, which we reached at four o'clock, there 
are a few ruins. On a hilltop an ancient citadel, 
quite small, has left its site outlined in remnants 
of wall and moat. No one seems to know the age 
of the city, and the builder of its fortifications, or 
to be able to attach the place to any of the great 
historical movements of other centuries. Some ex- 
cavator, no doubt, would find this place yielding 
important historical data. The site is so richly 
watered that it could not have had an unimportant 

84 



WHERE URIAH THE HITTITE DIED 



history in a land where such conditions constitute 
the determining factor of civilization. 

The Church Missionary Society has a station 
here. We called upon Dr. P. W. Brigstocke, a 
physician, who is in charge. About four hundred 
natives affiliate with the mission. Schools for boys 
and girls, a hospital, and a native church service 
are carried on. We visited the hospital. There 
are eighteen beds, and these always are in demand. 
Patients come from the Jordan Valley and as far 
south as Petra. It offers to many a Mohammedan 
his first insight into genuine Christianity. 

After a cold, damp night, the thermometer 
dropping to 48 degrees, and with tents and bed- 
ding damp, we set out at seven in the morning, and 
after an hour's ride reached the summit of a moun- 
tain which gave a view of nearly the whole length 
of the land. The Dead Sea came into sight to the 
south, nearly a mile below the peak upon which 
we stood. The whole Jordan Valley spread out in 
a vast panorama. Ebal and Gerizim were outlined 
in the mists which yet hung over the mountains on 
both sides of the river. Olivet was dimly discerned, 
and had there been no clouds its towers could have 
been distinguished. Eastward Ammon was roughly 
broken in great hills terraced with vineyards. We 
rode through some of these cultivated areas on the 
way to Jebel Osha. The terraces are from ten to 

85 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



fifty feet in width. The vines are pruned down 
to bare stocks, five to fifteen feet in length and three 
to nine inches thick, lying flat upon the ground. 
Es-Salt is famous for its grapes, and such vine- 
yards here described cover wide areas of the moun- 
tain slopes around the town. 

Perhaps a mile from the mountain just men- 
tioned, on another summit, though not so rich in 
vistas, is built a stone weli, or tomb, which local 
tradition calls the tomb of Hosea. A great tere- 
binth tree stands beside the tomb, and animals some- 
times are sacrificed here by the Mohammedans. It 
is a fine place to be buried, though there is no evi- 
dence that the prophet made his grave upon this 
mountain. 

The day gradually cleared and grew warm, and 
the next five hours' ride through the wonderfully 
colored mountains of Ammon was a continual de- 
light. Flocks of goats and sheep, scattered Bed- 
ouin camps, an occasional village, plowmen and 
vine-dressers, tattooed women, children whose feet 
were unshod, hair uncombed, faces unwashed, noses 
unwiped, minds unillumined, and, worst of all, ig- 
norant of their dirt and wretchedness, fill up the 
canvas which now is set in the ancient frame of 
Bible lands. 

We reached the southern edge of the Jabbok 
Valley at four in the afternoon. It is not possible 

86 



WHERE URIAH THE HITTITE DIED 



to describe its beauty. Every shade of green car- 
peted the hills, from their very summits to the sil- 
very stream which threads its way far below. The 
sun shone directly down the wady, and glorified its 
slope and transformed the two or three Bedouin en- 
campments into habitations worthy of a holiday. 
White clouds brought into fairer sharpness the 
azure sky, and a soft wind kissed a dozen differ- 
ently-hued flowers. 

It took thirty-five minutes to descend to the 
stream at the valley's depths. Wheat fields were 
bursting into head, birds were chirping, and bull- 
frogs vied with donkeys to voice the splendor of 
the spring. The opposite side of the brook offers 
a totally different path and view. The hills out- 
crop with stone, the path is steep and rough, there 
was little pasturage and no fields of grain until the 
summit was reached. The bottom of the valley at 
the place of crossing ranges from five to ten rods 
in width, and the brook runs rapidly at a depth of 
two or three feet. Somewhere in this neighborhood 
Jacob, returning with his family and his herds ac- 
quired in Syria, was brought face to face with his 
deception of Esau and with God. 

At dark we entered Jerash, and the muleteers, 
who complained of the long day from Es-Salt, 
talked rapidly and worked slowly, so that it was 
eleven o'clock before dinner was over and the damp 

87 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



beds were ready for tired and sleepy riders. In 
the darkness, as the baggage train approached 
Jerash, the mule which carried our' personal bag- 
gage either wandered from the path or was led 
aside by one of the thieving Circassian townsmen. 
When the muleteers were unloading their animals, 
the loss of the missing baggage animal was dis- 
covered. In the midst of mutual incriminations of 
carelessness a Circassian appeared, who said he 
could lead us to the lost mule for the modest sum 
of eight dollars. Two soldiers were sent with him, 
and at the end of two hours the baggage was re- 
turned to camp undamaged. The Circassian, with- 
out doubt the thief, was dismissed with thirteen 
francs. The man told a story so improbable, and 
the muleteers were so confident that the animal 
would not turn aside from the path without com- 
pulsion, that our dragoman and chief muleteer were 
convinced of the theft. Yet no effort was made 
on the part of the police to investigate the facts 
or to bring a possible crime to judgment. The 
soldiers, themselves the victims of the government's 
injustice, are not keen to set justice on high in 
their districts. Content that the baggage at last 
was set into our tents, we kept on our clothes and 
turned into the damp beds, hoping for the morrow 
a finer day. 



88 



IX 



JERASH AND GADARA 

Our camp at Jerash was pitched at the northeast 
side of the town, and on stepping forth into the 
morning sunlight the whole of ancient Gerasa, 
marked by magnificent ruins, stretched out before 
us on the western bank of the small stream which 
continues to make possible the habitations of man. 
Gerasa seems to have little or no Biblical history. 
It comes into notice through its capture by Alex- 
ander Jannasus, but its fine water supply must have 
made it an early settlement of Gilead and given it 
sufficient importance to attract the successors of 
Alexander the Great. Here, as at Ammon, one is 
deeply impressed with the civilization of Greece 
and Rome, which had penetrated so far toward the 
desert and which expresses in its ruins the greatness 
of mind and the sense of the permanence of their 
occupancy of the land which ever characterized the 
empire. 

But here at Gerasa, as in all the cities of the 
Decapolis, the influence pre-eminently was Greek. 
The ruins are massive enough to trace the charac- 
teristic Greek city of the Roman period. Coming 
north from the Jabbok, the city, whose walls are 

89 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



plainly traceable either by a ridge of earth and 
stones or by portions, still in position, was entered 
by a triumphal gate. This must have been an im- 
pressive structure. Its total width was eighty-three 
feet. There were three entrances. The central 
gate is twenty-one feet wide and thirty-nine high. 
These three entrances yet are arched, ' and from 
them the main thoroughfare of the ancient town 
stretches northward, lined by continuous ruins. 
Those who have seen Trajan's Arch at Rome will 
see in this Triumphal Gate of Gerasa much resem- 
blance. 

On passing through the ruined archway imme- 
diately appears the Naumachia, or theater for the 
representation of naval battles. It is a tenth of a 
mile long and nearly two hundred feet wide. Here 
the sea-born Greeks reminded themselves, even on 
the threshold of the desert, of their great naval vic- 
tories and kept alive their familiarity with the sea. 
Adjoining the basin leading north is the circus, three 
hundred by two hundred feet in area. Next comes 
a temple of noble proportions. Some of its walls 
are standing, and massive pillars impossible for the 
present inhabitants to move, lie stretched upon the 
ground, where some earthquake has thrown them. 

A large theater adjoins the temple. It faces 
northward and gave the spectators a view of the 
great public buildings of their city. Thirty-two 

90 



JERASH AND GADARA 



rows of seats are well preserved. The outer half 
of each row of seats is a half inch higher than the 
inner half of the seat. This kept the portion upon 
which the spectator sat dry, and marked the half 
upon which the person above was to keep his feet. 
This theater seated 4,500 people. Near by and to 
the northeast lay the forum. This is a semicircle 
once bounded by fifty-six noble Ionic columns. 
The majority of these being still in place and con- 
nected by their entablature, contributes greatly to 
Gerasa's rivalry of Baalbek. A bit of dreaming 
quickly fills this space with the shining fragments 
of the once splendid Imperial military and judicial 
life. 

From the forum runs a double colonnaded 
street, a half mile in length, through the heart of 
the city to its northern gate. Over five hundred 
columns once delighted those who rode or walked 
along this busy thoroughfare, and seventy-five 
of these still reveal something of their ancient 
beauty. The street % was forty-one feet in width, 
and the columns are twenty-five to thirty feet 
in height. Going north from the forum there 
are to be seen remains of baths, basilicas, a temple, 
and a small theater. At about the center of the 
city a second colonnaded street crossed the main 
thoroughfare at right angles, and its eastern end 
dropped down the hillslope and was carried across 

91 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



the stream by a bridge supported by arches which 
continue to maintain their ancient position. 

The Great Temple is most impressive, even in 
its ruins. It stands upon a terrace a tenth of a 
mile long and nearly four hundred feet in width. 
This entire area once was enclosed by columns. 
Parts of these are in position, and the outline of 
the magnificently bounded enclosure suggests some- 
thing of its former splendor. The temple itself 
was eighty-seven by sixty-six feet in size. Its 
portico is still grand, with its nine almost perfect, 
imposing columns. They are forty-five feet high, 
and at their base are five feet in diameter. A second 
theater, perhaps intended for combats of wild ani- 
mals and gladiators, lies north of the Great Temple 
of the Sun. Some of its seventeen tiers of seats, 
the columns adorning the front of the theater, and 
openings into the gallery or corridor from which 
passageways led to the upper seats, yet bear wit- 
ness to the pleasures of its builders. 

During the forenoon one of our party was ob- 
served by some native to dig with his hands some 
of the dirt beneath an old sarcophagus in the ruined 
church. The Circassian later dug in the same spot, 
and on his failure to find a treasure similar to that 
which he supposed the American found, he reported 
to the mudir that we were digging among the ruins. 
During the afternoon each group and individual 

92 



JERASH AND GADARA 



was closely attended by a soldier. Such is the care 
taken by the government that no stranger shall 
make away with ancient treasure, while any native 
takes ancient columns, capitals, and building stones 
at his pleasure, to be disgraced in the walls of his 
dirty dwelling. 

At half past four on April 4th the call to arise 
sent us shivering into our clothes by the light of 
a candle. The thermometer, which stood at 80 
degrees at noon, sank to 48 degrees in the tent by 
morning. Yet with this early call the baggage did 
not start until after seven. These Palestinian 
muleteers are but grown children, impetuous, talk- 
ative, vociferous, and unmethodical. Baggage is 
packed with unreasonable delay, with much cursing, 
and with no apparent dexterity won by continual 
practice. The East always is traditional. A thing 
must be done so to-day because it was done that 
way on yesterday. It is a rule, also, never to do 
to-day what can be done to-morrow. Boukra, i. e., 
to-morrow, is ever heard when something is needed 
to be done. Perhaps there is no land where so many 
people miss the train. 

But at last the tedious wait is over, and our 
caravan troops away from Gerasa. Our last view 
of the town yields modern Jerash, with its 2,000 
Circassians on the eastern bank of the stream, oc- 
cupying only a slight portion of the area within 

93 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



the ancient walls. On the western bank, shining in 
the morning light, the lonely columns of the street, 
the temple, and the forum stand forth in testimony 
of the town's former splendor, and in witness of 
the decay for which the Bedouins and an inefficient 
government alike are responsible. 

Ammon, or Gilead, as one rides north from 
Jerash, for some four hours is one continual series 
of isolated hills separated by a few leading wadies. 
In such a ride two or three villages, a half dozen 
flocks of sheep and goats, two herds of cattle, and 
some half dozen ox-teams plowing, make up the 
habitable life of this region. Then the hills gave 
way to a vast plain, interrupted occasionally by a 
few hills or ridges, and continued until we ended 
a three-hour ride at Irbid. These fields, unmarked 
by fences, and green with lentils, wheat, and barley, 
extended for many miles. There are several villages 
where peasants till these broad farms. We stopped 
for a time in one of them, El-Hasa. The town has 
a population of 1,200, half of whom are Greek and 
Latin Christians. We visited a boys' school kept 
by the Church Missionary Society of the Church 
of England. There were some fifty boys in attend- 
ance, ranging in age from eight to fifteen. The 
teacher is a native of the village, and received his 
training in Jerusalem. The boys sang for us in 
Arabic and English, and the older boys read in 

94 



JERASH AND GADARA 



English and translated into Arabic. Very excellent 
work seems to be accomplished. 

Camp was pitched in the midst of a driving rain 
at Irbid. This is a town with a population of 
2,000. It is the chief village of the district of 
Ajlun, which is the southern part of the Hauran. 
There are here a Turkish telegraph office, a small 
detachment of soldiers, and a government physi- 
cian. The latter is a graduate of the French School 
at Bey rout, and opened a drug store, the first in 
Irbid, the week of our visit. Condensed milk and 
vichy water found their way into our camp from 
his store. There is no better place than here to 
set down our evening meal. It will give some 
clearer idea of a camping tour in Palestine. The 
dinner was served in a tent flapping in the wind 
and rain, and pitched on the plain of Irbid, far 
across the Jordan toward the wilderness. The 
dining-tent has room for a table which serves ten 
guests. After grace, napkins were unrolled and 
noodle-soup was served. Then came macaroni 
cooked with chicken giblets. The second course was 
chicken and French-fried potatoes. Dessert con- 
sisted of prunes and goats' cheese. Delicious cocoa 
ended the meal. This dinner was served by two 
waiters and enlivened by student, professorial, and 
clerical anecdotes, and with discussions of the events 
of the day. 

95 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



The events of April 5th began at two in the 
morning, when the wind and rain loosened our 
tent-pins and about half of the tent in which the 
writer and Dr. Bradner and Professors Peritz and 
Fowler were sleeping dropped down upon the beds. 
We hastily dressed, shouted for help, and held the 
falling tent until the sleeping muleteers arrived and 
fastened the ropes again. The rain continued at 
intervals until noon, and it required courage to 
move out of the wet tents and face the storm. 

A little more than an hour's ride brought us to 
Beit-er-Ras, whose scanty ruins are thought to 
mark the site of Capitolias, one of the cities of the 
Decapolis. It was set on an eminence which over- 
looked the fertile plain for miles in every direction. 
Two other villages near by help furnish the laborers 
required to till these great fields. Here are to be 
seen the stones set up at intervals which mark the 
vast plain into separate farms. These holdings are 
always in narrow strips, but they extend usually a 
considerable distance. The path then led over lime- 
stone hills upon which magnificent forests once 
grew. They now look like old apple orchards, and 
for a time the hillsides looked like home. As we 
rode up through one of these orchards it seemed 
that the old farmhouse with its warm kitchen-fire 
and smoking supper must lie just a few rods away 
over the hill. These rocky slopes were covered with 

96 



JERASH AND GADARA 



bright-hued flowers. In five minutes we plucked 
thirty-two varieties. 

At three o'clock Mukeis, the ancient Gadara, 
was reached. This was another of the cities of the 
Decapolis League. It was finely located upon a 
headland which juts out into the Jordan Valley to- 
ward the southern end of the Sea of Galilee. A 
thousand feet below this village and ancient town 
the Yarmuk hurries down to Palestine's chief river, 
and from the theater, which faces northward, can 
be seen the lake, Tiberias, on the left shore, Mt. 
Tabor's bald summit beyond the Jordan, Gilboa, 
and the dim outlines of Carmel at the edge of the 
Great Sea. The testimony to Roman occupation, 
to the generosity of Pompey, who freed the city, 
to the patronage of Augustus who gave it to Herod, 
consists of this theater. The place, seating ap- 
proximately 3,000, the majority of whose seats are 
in position, a second theater almost gone, scattered 
sarcophagi, fragments of columns, pavements, and 
walls, remain to evidence the splendor and impor- 
tance of this Decapolitan city. I took a picture 
at Gadara of a group of women, who resented the 
liberty taken. "We will cut your throat," they 
said. But, like their dogs, they bark more furiously 
than they bite. They made no effort to carry out 
their threat, and stood quietly while being photo- 
graphed. No doubt they enjoyed the distinction. 
7 97 



THE EASTERN SHORE OF GALILEE 



An hour's descent from Gadara brings the rider 
down to the swiftly-flowing Yarmuk at El-Hammi, 
or "The Baths," a station on the Haifa-Damascus 
Railway. The river at this ford, though not deep, 
runs swiftly towards some rapids lower down, and 
horse and rider must be on guard against being 
swept on to the rocks. The banks of the stream 
were lined with flowering oleanders, and the moun- 
tains of the gorge were touched with gold as our 
baggage-train undertook the crossing. There is no 
town at this point, but the four large, beautiful, 
hot white-sulphur springs should attract bathers 
from afar and build beside themselves a modern 
town. One of these springs is an oval pool, its di- 
ameters forty and seventy-five feet, and it is from 
two to six feet in depth. 

These were famous springs in the Roman pe- 
riod, and some day they will again become a well- 
known sanitarium. They are so easy of access, and 
flow with such abundance, that, with the inrush of 
enterprise which will follow the overthrow of the 

98 



THE EASTERN SHORE OF GALILEE 



Turkish Government, they must become financially 
productive. The Bedouins are attracted by the 
healing virtues of the springs, and the months of 
April and May usually find the sick encamped by 
them. There were several tents set up by the Yar- 
muk at the time of our visit, and an occasional sick 
man was to be seen in the waters. The Yarmuk 
Valley is not nearly so precipitous as the Jabbok 
and Arnon, but a much larger stream flows swiftly 
down the valley to their common outlet. 

An hour's hard climbing, on April 6th, from 
El-Hammi by a path along the cliffs which the 
traveler to Damascus by rail would not discern, 
lifted us out of the Yarmuk gorge upon the table- 
land on its northern side. Reaching to the very 
edge of the cliffs is a magnificent fertile plain, alive 
with meadow-larks, flowers, and grain-fields. For 
a half hour we rode beside the Yarmuk, and then 
struck inward to Galilee. At one place on this plain 
twenty-five ox-teams were seen plowing, and sheep 
and goats were shepherded everywhere. 

At the modern village of Kefr-Harib, standing 
high above the lake on what certainly must have 
been an ancient site, the whole of Gennesaret swept 
into view. The sea lay smooth under a gentle 
breeze which ruffled the surface into ever-changing 
shapes of green and blue. To the south the lake 
sweeps round in an even semi-circle, and the wide 

99 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



valley and the Jordan drop down between the hills 
beyond. Southwest, Tabor, out of sight of which 
one never gets in Northern Palestine, stood gloomy 
with the rain-clouds floating across its summit. Di- 
rectly across the lake lies Tiberias, as if it had 
slipped down the hills and barely stopped itself on 
the seashore. To the north is the site of Caper- 
naum, and eastward the Jordan glides into the lake. 
Directly below the village the tableland lets itself 
down in two or three broad terraces and sinking 
slopes, and completes a vista one never can forget. 

At one o'clock, lunch having been eaten in 
the rain, our party climbed to Kalat el-Husn. 
Whether it is the ancient Hippos, or whether this 
Decapolitan city lay farther back from the sea, at a 
site where the natives have unearthed a cemetery in 
the search for treasure, the bold promontory which 
we climbed once was strongly fortified and occupies 
an almost impregnable position. It rises precipi- 
tately on all sides, and is connected by a narrow 
ridge with the surrounding hills. Broken columns, 
some carved stone, lintels with rosettes, patches of 
pavement, here and there a layer of wall, and sev- 
eral cisterns bear irrefragable witness to the in- 
domitable energy of the militarism of the early 
Christian centuries. Here also a complete survey 
of the lake is obtained, but much more of the Jor- 
dan Valley comes into view. Somewhere on these 

100 



THE EASTERN SHORE OF GALILEE 



mountains did Jesus, weary of marching armies and 
fortified cities, put aside the crown which the 
thoughtless people offered Him, and on these slopes 
He fed the thousands and taught them what He 
could. 

From Hippos the descent to the sea is rough, 
and the path winds past the isolated hill of Gamala, 
once an important fortified city, and now, like many 
another seat of ancient splendor, a pasturage for 
sheep and goats. This hill can be seen plainly from 
Tiberias, and must once have added life and bril- 
liance to the activities of Galilee. At no place along 
the northern half of the eastern shore of the lake 
do the cliffs or precipitous slopes come down to the 
sea. From Gamala we rode along the shore to the 
inlets of the Jordan, sometimes by a path through 
grain-fields and pasturages, sometimes on the wet 
sand lapped by the kind waves. A plain from one- 
fourth to a mile wide reaches to the extreme north- 
ern end of the lake. This soil is extremely fertile, 
and American farming would turn this wilderness 
into a sea of golden grain. One small mud village 
clings to the shore, and the ruins of another are 
found within a mile from the northern end of the 
lake. This site very finely corresponds to the nar- 
rative in which Jesus, after feeding the five thou- 
sand, takes boat for the other shore, and the people 
run round the lake and meet Him as He lands. 

101 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



Somewhere along this eastern bank between Gamala 
and the incoming of the Jordan is to be made the 
localization of the narrative of the Gadarene or 
Gergesene demoniac. At several places there are 
caves in the limestone cliffs where the frenzied man 
might have dwelt, but at no place near the lake is 
there a shore where even bewildered hogs might 
not have stopped their maddened course. 

As we made camp a rare sunset glowed upon this 
northern plain. The plain itself was dotted with 
Bedouin tents, two hundred or more, and was alive 
with camels, horses, donkeys, water-buffalo, and 
human beings. The sky was rich with clouds, and 
they blushed with rose-tints of many hues. The sun 
sank behind the low hills of the northern boundary 
of the lake, and showed his resting-place by a fan- 
like effusion of orange glow. The eastern moun- 
tains, rising gradually from the plain, wore dark- 
green patched with brown. The faintly-glowing 
ridge gradually rises toward the south, and is cut 
into hilltops by gullies which run down to the plain. 
The plain at the northern end is full of bayous and 
numberless windings of the many mouths of the 
Jordan, in whose sluggish waters the buffalo wade 
deep on hot days. The lake itself beats against the 
sandy shore, and an occasional whitecap adorned 
the green water. The western shores are rougher, 
and at sunset melt their ravines into the twilight 

102 



THE EASTERN SHORE OF GALILEE 



and the faint colors which stretch along the ridge 
toward Tiberias. The shadows were lying in the 
wady through which the Jordan comes down to the 
lake, and to the south the mist veiled the shore 
through which the river passes on its dead march. 

Again and again must the men of Galilee so 
have seen the sunset visit their lake and hills — often 
must they have wondered at the glory of their sea 
and hills and sky. But this glory did not light 
them into immortality. Somewhere on these shores 
a Man walked who called them from their toil. 
Somewhere on these grassy slopes He fed and 
taught them. Somewhere on this curling lake He 
stilled the storm and walked upon its waves. Some- 
where on these quiet hills He prayed. This Man 
entered their life. He flashed a sunrise upon them, 
and before its glory the splendor of their hill- 
bounded lake faded, and they followed Him to 
Judea and Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to Bethany, 
through the centuries of human wonder into un- 
dying immortality. Kneeling there upon the sand 
of that inland sea, a new sense of the greatness of 
the miracle of Jesus burst upon me. There is noth- 
ing here to make men great. It is beautiful here. 
Nature would find worshipers in this place. But 
there is no power to make men such as He. He 
brought His greatness with Him. He makes Gen- 
nesaret the shrine of the world's pilgrimage. Such 

103 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



a miracle does not belong to the past alone. He 
yet brings His disciples unto Himself, and trans- 
forms them with His glory. This is His truth 
which gleams anew in one's soul beside this gleam- 
ing sea bathed in the glowing sunset. 

Across the Jordan Delta, on the morning of 
April 7th, from beyond the Gilead hills the sun 
beamed upon the el-Bataihah and awoke it into 
life, and fell upon the gently-stirring lake and 
crimsoned the hills behind Tiberias. The day is 
modern and throbs with present interests. The 
night is ancient and deals in antiquities. Our tents 
were pitched within a few feet of the waters of the 
lake, and through the twilight the waves splashing 
upon the sand were transformed by the imagination 
into restful music. By half-past eight the west 
wind slept, the lake grew pensive, the brilliant stars 
gleamed faint paths of glory across the sea, the 
barrenness and solitude of the hills and shores were 
hidden, and the sea and land took on something of 
their ancient splendor. At such times the centuries 
disappear, and the dead ruins of Greek and Roman 
civilization throb with life, the fisheries again are 
harvested by the sons of Abraham, and into their 
midst He walks like whom there is no other, and 
thrusts Himself imperishably into the life of man- 
kind. The night ever brings us nearer to the past 
than the day. Dawn reveals the vicious degenera- 

104 



THE EASTERN SHORE OF GALILEE 



tion of this land and its civilization ; night curtains 
the reality of fact and opens the sluiceways of the 
imagination, upon whose currents splendid events, 
heroic persons, and mighty achievements drift by, 
filling the present with the fullest glory of other 
days. 

The morning dispelled the splendid civilization 
which the night had rebuilt around the lake, and 
revealed the squalid reed huts of the fishermen and 
the black tents of the Bedouins which dotted the 
el-Bataihah, the extensive mlarshy delta of the 
Jordan at the northeastern corner of the Lake of 
Galilee. The fisheries here are yet important, and 
great quantities are carried fresh to towns as dis- 
tant as Safed and Nazareth, and salted for the 
markets of Jerusalem and Damascus. The govern- 
ment takes one-fifth of all fish caught either in the 
Jordan Delta or the lake. This tax is farmed, and 
Dr. Masterman in his "Studies in Galilee" states 
that one thousand Turkish pounds are paid every 
three years for the right to take one-fifth of all 
the fish caught. 1 The owner of the el-Bataihah 
resides in Damascus, and as much as $800 has been 
paid him annually for the exclusive right to take 
fish in the Jordan Delta. The fishing here is the 
most valuable in the lake, and may be carried on 
the year round. 

»p. 37.3 

105 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



A fifty-minutes 5 ride toward the northeast across 
the delta brings one to et-Tell, the site of Bethsaida. 
It is a low hill jutting out into the plain, once a 
hive of industry, now a thistle-grown mound of 
stones. Two or three low scrubby trees struggle 
to keep alive, and as we stumbled over the stones 
a fox started from his den and slipped quickly into 
another near-by hiding place. To the right the 
Jordan in several channels noisily slips to the lake, 
and the ridge beyond the stream slopes close to the 
edge of the sea and shuts out from Bethsaida a 
sight of Chorazin and Capernaum. Directly in 
front of the once tenanted hill the sea lies less than 
a mile away, and at daybreak Simon, John, and 
Philip clearly could have seen their boats anchored 
on the shore. 

Another scene greeted our eyes. At the foot 
of the Bethsaida hill a Bedouin funeral procession 
halted to inter the chief of the tribe. The camel 
which bore the body of the sheikh kneeled as we 
came up, and the corpse was removed. Two hun- 
dred men and women accompanied their dead. The 
smoke ascended from some fire, the voices of wailing 
floated up to us, their horses wandered as they 
pleased, and the beating drum assisted them to 
express their grief. They showed their displeasure 
at our presence. The new sheikh answered no ques- 

106 



THE EASTERN SHORE OF GALILEE 



tion and urged us to move on. One of our party 
began to take pictures, and the sheikh roughly 
asked, "What is that?" Before the explanation 
could be given, a Bedouin spoke quickly, "It is from 
Gehenna." We felt some sympathy with these sons 
of the East, put away our kodaks, and left them 
to bewail their dead. 



107 



XII 



BETHSAIDA TO BANIAS 

From the ruins of Bethsaida a nine-hours 5 continu- 
ous ascent leads to el-Kuneitra, the modern seat of 
government of the Jaulan. No words can ade- 
quately describe this territory lying to the east 
and north of the Sea of Galilee. The whole of 
Northern Palestine east of the Jordan, from the 
Yarmuk to Mt. Hermon and Damascus, is called 
the Hauran. That portion of this territory which 
lies next the Sea of Galilee and the upper Jordan 
is called Jaulan. At the beginning of the Christian 
era it was Gaulinitis, and in Old Testament times 
it went by the name of Golan. It was through 
this territory that we rode all day toward el- 
Kuneitra, the modern capital of this district. The 
town is approximately 3,800 feet about the Sea of 
Galilee, and this increase of height is distributed 
over many weary miles of rough stones. All day 
long the horses stumbled over a continuous stone 
heap by wandering goat-paths. For long distances 
there was not space enough between the stones for 
a horse to set his foot. The crest of the hill, ever 
seemingly just a little ahead, continued to lure us 

108 



BETHSAIDA TO BANIAS 



onward toward the heights until the shadows of the 
night came down. 

Yet the Jaulan is extremely fertile. Wherever 
the stones were cleared, patches of wheat and barley, 
already in head, promised a rich harvest. There 
were acres of flowers. At many places the hills were 
blue with a species of bellflower. Tiny rills trickling 
down from the distant heights produced luxuriant 
pasturage at every available space, and there were 
hundreds of cattle, thousands of sheep and goats, 
numerous camels and horses feeding among the 
stones. An occasional village rose upon these stone- 
heaps, from whose squalid homes shepherds go forth 
each morning to watch their flocks and herds. For 
nearly the whole distance to el-Kuneitra the Sea 
of Galilee is in sight, and, unless hidden by some 
slight ridge close at hand, Hermon, decorated with 
snow ribbons, gleams in the sunlight. 

The baggage train this day took the wrong 
road and arrived at the appointed camping-ground 
at eight o'clock, the mules weary and quiet, the men 
tired and cursing. One of the horses gave out, and 
his rider walked half the day's journey, and this 
mishap threw our arrival as late as the baggage 
train. To set up our tents in the dark, to get one's 
bed in order by a flickering candle, to eat corned 
beef and hard bread at eleven at night, to creep 
into damp blankets at midnight, expecting to be 

109 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



called at dawn, requires a judicious use of the im- 
agination to praise a horseback ride through an- 
cient Golan. 

If Manasseh cared for sunsets and dawns, he 
might have found something in this Gaulinitis sky 
to offset his stumbling among the stones. At least 
we forgot the rough path while the sun was speed- 
ing down the west to his goal behind the mountains. 
For nearly an hour before he touched the hill crest 
the sunset color burned faintly on the ridge and 
flared its rosy flame along the lower sky. A great 
trail of tiny clouds reaching far to the loftiest 
southern sky followed the sun, and each of them was 
flecked with fire until they were transformed into 
a flaming comet sweeping through infinite distances. 
A more majestic sunset never was seen. The twi- 
light was prolonged unusually, and the stars had 
multiplied into a countless multitude before the 
comet cloud dissolved into the night. 

Mt. Hermon, who had breathed his cool air 
upon us all night long, greeted us at our first peep 
through the tent door on April 8th, and invited us 
to a morning walk before breakfast to his summits. 
But on consulting the map he was found to pitcli 
his tent twenty miles away, and to lift his head a 
mile above the plateau where we had slept, so clear 
is the air in this smokeless land. el-Kuneitra is 
another one of the Circassian villages which the 

110 



i 



BETHSAIDA TO BANIAS 



Turkish Government has scattered through Eastern 
Palestine, and it, like the others, is an improvement 
of the country. The population approximates 
3,000. The houses are of stone, the streets straight, 
and, though unpaved and filthy, are lighted by oil 
lamps. These street lights, also seen at es-Salt and 
Medeba, are strangely out of keeping with the 
primitive places which they illumine. The shops 
are well supplied, and furnish goods for a wide 
territory. 

One of the townsmen, who spoke broken Eng- 
lish, which he had learned as a peddler in America, 
invited two of our°party to his home to examine 
some antiquities. He led us into a court unspeak- 
ably filthy, on the one # side of which was the stable 
and on the other side was his house. The first room 
was bare, and from it several doors opened. The 
room which we next entered had around three sides 
an upholstered divan. Two fine rugs covered the 
floor. A mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinet filled the 
open space along the fourth wall, and on a mattress 
laid upon the rugs a baby was sleeping. Presently 
the door opened, the mother asked for the child, 
and the father put it into her arms. The child was 
very young, and was tightly wrapped in its clothes 
until it looked like a mummy. 

The antiquities proving of no interest, we left 
to walk through the town. We met boys with slate 

111 



\ 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

and books on the way to school, a butcher dressing 
a sheep at the door of his shop, camels being loaded 
for Damascus, women carrying water from the 
spring, donkeys loaded with freshly-cut grass and 
with charcoal, and merchants standing at the door 
of their shops or sitting within, waiting for custom- 
ers. All these shops of the East Palestinian villages 
have their floors on two levels. The first floor 
flushes with the doorway, and is stone or cement. 
The second floor is six or eight inches higher and 
occupies half or two-thirds of the floorspace of the 
shop. On this level are spread rugs, and a char- 
coal brazier stands with coffeepot ready to serve, 
and with pipes offered to the more important cus- 
tomers. The shoes always are taken off before the 
proprietor or the customer enters this part of the 
store. There are no fixed prices. The most trifling 
article requires that the shopkeeper shall ask a 
price always greater than he expects to obtain for 
it, and that the purchaser makes an offer always 
less than he is willing to give. A little experience 
enables one quickly "to speak his last words first," 
as the Arabs say. 

The ride from el-Kuneitra to Banias, our 
next camp, was full of interest. The pasturage 
continued most excellent where the stones are not 
in heaps, and at one place we counted three hundred 
head of cattle, horses, and donkeys feeding upon 

112 



BETHSAIDA TO BAN IAS 



as many acres. At many places the stones, largely 
volcanic, render the ground utterly worthless. The 
hills here rise from three to five hundred feet above 
the tableland, but the latter itself is so high above 
the sea level that the hills about el-Kuneitra are 
the highest mountains in Palestine. These are vol- 
canic mountains, and many of them are farmed to 
their summits. 

We lunched beside the lake of Phiala, a pool 
of water three-fourths of a mile in diameter, which 
rests in the crater of an extinct volcano. Across 
the lake the ridge of Hermon was in view for nearly 
its whole length. A village clustered on its gray 
slopes nearest us, and the snow gleamed in its seams 
and hollow crests. 

Turning aside from the direct path to Banias, 
we entered the village of Ain Kanya and visited the 
school kept by a teacher from the Presbyterian 
Mission at Beyrout. There were about fifty chil- 
dren, some of them girls, in attendance. They read 
for us in Arabic, and recited the Twenty-third 
Psalm. The reader pitches his voice high, recites 
the words without pause until out of breath, 
breathes deeply, and darts ahead at a gallop until 
again exhausted. The teacher, a native of the vil- 
lage, spoke excellent German. One hundred Chris- 
tian young men of the village, he said, had gone 
to America, and New York was becoming a home- 
8 113 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



land for them unto which all wished to go. In 
nearly every village which we have visited some en- 
terprising and restless young man told us he was 
going to America, and in many cases we were asked 
to take them with us. 

This teacher left his school in charge of an- 
other and guided us to Kalat en-Namrud, or Nim- 
rod's Castle, a Crusader ruin, the largest and best 
preserved castle in Syria. It is worth going many 
miles to see this strong post by which the mediaeval 
Christians sought to defend the Holy Land from 
the infidel Moslem. The castle stands upon an 
almost impregnable hill, separated by a deep gorge 
from the lower mountains of the Hermon ridge. 
Massive walls, huge and strong towers, are set upon 
crags high above the valleys, and bear wonderful 
testimony to the zeal and heroic purpose of the Cru- 
saders. The fortress was more than a fourth of 
a mile long and 360 feet in width. Huge vaulted 
passages, underground rooms, cisterns and shafts, 
massive blocks of stone, loftly arches, and half- 
fallen towers and bastions still witness to the vast 
labor and unique skill required to fortify the hill 
and explain the many contests here waged by the 
Christian against the Moslem. At the very center 
of the eastern end of the citadel there seems to 
have been built a chapel. Nave and transepts, 
though open to the sky and full of rubbish, may 

114 



BETHSAIDA TO BANIAS 



be traced. At the heart of the citadel stood the 
symbol of what, despite the love of adventure and 
conquest, possessed the soul of the mediaeval war- 
rior pilgrim who sought to wrest the land sanctified 
and immortalized by Jesus from the infidel, and hold 
it, the pride and chief heritage of Christendom. 
No one can visit this old castle without reappraising 
the marshaled hosts of Europe during the Crusader 
centuries. Like the Romans, they fought for em- 
pire and embalmed their purpose in religion. From 
this evolved courage, loyalty, majestic plans, and 
great determination ; and these qualities, no longer 
seen in bloody battlefields and bleaching bones, still 
are revealed in the solid and comprehensive ruins 
which yet are strewn through the land they coveted 
and in which they died. 



115 



XII 



THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN 

On April 9th our tents were pitched at Banias on 
the bank of the Wady es-Saar, which flows on the 
south side of the ancient wall of Csesarea-Philippi, 
and its tumbling waters sent us restf ully to slumber 
and became the glad accompaniment of our arousal 
to the experiences of another day. From the hill- 
sides of our camping-ground a magnificent view 
appeared to the east and north. The sun struggled 
through dark clouds of rain clinging to the moun- 
tains stretching southward along the Jordan plain. 
A little to the north of sunrise the Crusaders' Castle, 
fortified still by the imagination, looks protection 
upon Banias, clinging to the western end of the 
castle mountain. A deep gorge winding past the 
castle ruins sweeps round the northern side of 
Banias hill, and empties its brook in the Jordan 
stream. Above it two broadly-rounded hilltops ease 
down a spur of Hermon, the higher of which is 
pointed out reverently as the slope on which Peter 
confessed his kingdom-building faith, and where the 
Master vouchsafed His three disciples a revelation 

116 



THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN 



of His transcendent glory. Beyond these moun- 
tains another gorge divides the western end of Her- 
mon, and a ridge of rounded summits leads from 
the highest, which the sunrise silvered through 
clinging mists to the plain far to the west and 
north. 

Directly below the tents on the opposite bank 
of the Saar lie the village of Banias and the ruins 
of Philip's city. A narrow bridge, certainly stand- 
ing on a site used of old, arches the noisy stream 
which lower down unites with the Banias Jordan. 
Jesus and His disciples must have crossed here, 
turned up through the Greek and Roman city, and 
sought the mountain slopes beyond. It is some- 
what strange that no echo of the Greek cult of Pan, 
who long had a grotto here, and the just and 
splendor-loving rule of Philip is heard in the Gos- 
pels. Perhaps their kingdom was so gloriously 
outlined in their imagination that the towers, walls, 
and temples of the Herods sank into petty counter- 
parts of their dreams. Yet Philip might have given 
these dreaming Galileans some suggestions of the 
spirit of their kingdom. The son of Herod the 
Great, and educated at Rome, he should have been 
the embodiment of cruelty, lust, and ambition. Yet 
under his long reign of thirty-eight years his 
people never were oppressed, and by them he was 
greatly beloved. He was once married and always 

117 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



loyal to his vows. Josephus relates that "he was 
moderate and peaceful in his rule." "He went out 
with a small retinue, always taking with him his 
throne, upon which he might sit and judge. When- 
ever he met any one who had need of him he made 
no delay, but set down his throne wherever he might 
be and heard the case." Such was the man who 
gave his name to the city which he built at the 
shrine of Pan, and by such name, once enshrined in 
Gospel history, shall it ever be known. 

From the Pan Grotto rushes out the Banias 
fount of the Jordan. Above the grotto the moun- 
tain ends in a precipitous cliff of limestone. In 
the cavern at the head of the little valley which 
suddenly begins at the base of the cliff, this branch 
of the Jordan once burst from the mountain side. 
A great mass of debris now partly fills the cavern 
and the space in front of it, so that the Jordan no 
longer is seen issuing from the cavern, as in the 
days when Pan was worshiped, but from the slope 
of rock and earth one hundred and fifty feet away. 
The water gushes out of many places, forming a 
semi-circle of nearly two hundred feet. The water 
is cold and sends forth its large volume in two clear 
brooks, which continually unite and divide until 
the common stream reaches the plain. On the face 
of the cliff above the spring stands the tomb of a 
sheikh. Above the level of the cement floor a raised 

118 



THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN 



grave was covered with cloth, and in niches around 
the small room were votive vases and prayer rugs. 
These strips of cloth tied to sacred trees and tombs 
are extremely pathetic. The fellahin have not 
much else than rags to offer, and every sacred site 
is bannered with these visible tokens of their prayers 
in times of need. On the morning of our visit a 
woman was helping a sick man to struggle pain- 
fully up the steep path to the shrine, where he 
hoped his prayers for healing would be heard. 

In an hour's ride from Banias Tell-el-Kadi is 
reached, the traditional site of the city of Dan. 
It is a low, circular hill, highest on its southern side, 
and from one-third to one-half mile in diameter. 
At its highest side it rises sixty to seventy-five feet 
above the plain, and commands a view of the Jor- 
dan Valley to the Lake of Huleh. If this low, 
grain-covered hill is the true site of the Danite city, 
then to this place the Danites came with their stolen 
deities, and the Levite who gladly exchanged his 
country parish in the house of Micah for a city 
pastorate, and surprised the town, a Sidonian 
colony, and became the northern bulwark of the 
Hebrew settlements. 

At the western slope of the hill a great spring 
issues to form a pool one hundred and fifty feet in 
diameter. This is the largest of the three streams 
which unite to form the Jordan. It is called the 

119 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



Little Jordan by Josephus. It sends down the plain 
two or three times as much water as the spring at 
Banias. 

The city of Dan stood in the midst of a most 
fertile plain. In spite of modern neglect, rice, 
wheat-fields, green pasturages, and tall silver pop- 
lars testify to the richness of the soil. "A place 
where there is no want of anything that is in the 
earth," said the spies of Dan who returned to guide 
their marauding brethren to their new home. The 
place is now a desolate stoneheap overgrown with 
thistles and thorns. It is strange that such a de- 
lightful home site should remain desolate and un- 
inhabited. There is no lack of population. Bed- 
ouin tents are scattered over the plain. Thousands 
of water buffalo, sheep, and goats, ever attended 
by herdsmen, wander over the Jordan plain, which 
is here some five miles wide. At places the plain 
consists of low, rocky hills, but the soil is fertile, as 
many grain-fields prove. But for the most part 
from the hill of Dan to the Lake of Huleh the plain 
slopes downward in low, marshy land, and ends at 
the lake in a tangle of papyrus said to be the largest 
jungle of paper reeds in the world. Great herds 
of water buffalo were pasturing in this plain, and 
when the hot summer days come they will be found 
half buried in the mud and water of the marshes 
near Lake Huleh. 

120 



THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN 

Near the western side of this plain the Hash- 
bani, the third chief source of the Jordan, comes 
tumbling down the gorge which it has cut through 
the plain. It is not so great in volume as the other 
two, but it comes from far up beside the eastern 
slopes of Hermon. On the western side of the Up- 
per Jordan the mountains of Galilee stretch south- 
ward in a long ridge facing the plain, with steep, 
majestic slopes. One of the highest mountains of 
this part of Galilee is Hunin, which rises nearly 
three thousand feet above the Huleh Lake. It com- 
mands a thrilling view. Across the valley, low 
down, nestles Banias and its guardian fortress on 
the spur of Hermon. Higher still the western snow 
slopes of Mt. Hermon gleam brightly, and to the 
north the dim outlines of Mt. Sannin, the loftiest 
peak of the Lebanon appears. On Mt. Hunin is 
the town and ruins of the ancient fortress of Hunin, 
which in Crusading days linked the Banias Castle 
with the coast. The two strongholds are in clear 
view of each other, though four hours of difficult 
riding lie between. A deep moat hollowed out of 
the solid rock, some layers of cut stone, and a few 
arches indicate the strength of the old walled city. 
Its one water supply is a muddy pool, but the rich 
valley between the town and the higher mountain 
summits in some measure compensates for the lack 
of springs. 

121 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



From Hunin our route lay across a mountain 
valley, past villages, and through the two-hilled 
city of Meis to Kedesh, the Kedesh Naphtali of the 
Book of Judges. This hilltop, once designated as 
a City of Refuge in her priestly legislation, be- 
came such for us. Our tents were set up in the 
midst of stones and thistles on the probable site of 
the town from which Barak was summoned by Deb- 
orah to lead the hosts of Naphtali and Zebulon 
against Sisera. But Barak, so records the Book of 
Judges, would not summon his clansmen until Deb- 
orah returned with him to Kedesh. There is a 
tradition that Deborah, as well as Barak, was buried 
here, and, if one were inclined to romance, the two 
might be remembered as once resting side by side 
in one of the two mammoth, double, rock-hewn sar- 
cophagi which are to be seen among the ruins. But 
unfortunately for romance, the tombs are Roman, 
and Deborah's home was far south in the hill coun- 
try of Ephraim. 

The Romans found in Kedesh a town to fortify. 
A fine spring issues from the hillside, half way be- 
tween the summit and a fine fertile plain which 
sweeps in a half-circle round the town. Great fields 
of beans and lentils, wheat and barley, orchards of 
olives and figs, and excellent pasturage on the hill- 
side ever must have tempted city builders at Ke- 
desh. One of the surprises of Upper Galilee is this 

122 



THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN 



dropping away of hilltops into quiet basins where 
crops and trees luxuriate. So it is at Meis and 
Hunin as well as at Kedesh, and so the road to 
Safed proved to hold its rich secrets of agriculture 
and grazing. The only olive orchards seen by us 
in Eastern Palestine which surpass those at Kedesh 
are at Banias, and upon the slopes leading up to the 
Crusaders' Castle. For nearly the hour required 
to ride from the ruins of the castle to the site of 
Philip's city, the path runs through orchards of 
olive. 

At Kedesh the ruins of the Roman occupation 
are scattered over the hilltops. The wall of a 
temple adorned with a figure in a toga, rosettes, and 
an eagle with spread wings, giant sarcophagi, and 
smaller ones turned into drinking troughs, frag- 
ments of capitals, columns, arches, and hewn stones, 
remain to point out the far-reaching occupation of 
the empire in Palestine. No ancient hill-town, no 
spring, no tumbling brook, no wide plain, and no 
overtopping peak failed to appeal to the Roman 
genius of dominion. 

The day's ride on April 10th, from Kedesh to 
Safed by the way of el-Jish and Kafr Birim, was 
through an extremely rough country and the high- 
est in Western Palestine. Mt. Jermak, the highest 
summit in Galilee and on the west of the Jordan, 
and rising four thousand feet above the level of the 

123 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



sea, is in view nearly the whole way. The path 
runs over hills and deep in valleys, by cultivated 
fields and rock-strewn slopes, and furnishes a stren- 
uous day. Villages dot many hills, and usually 
mark the outburst of a spring. During the day we 
visited el-Jish, the Giscala of New Testament 
times. This hill was fortified by Josephus, and of 
all the military posts of Galilee it held out longest 
against the Romans. St. Jerome believed the par- 
ents of St. Paul lived at Giscala, and later moved 
to Tarsus. 

We sat among the ruins of the synagogue at 
Kafr Birim and felt deep sympathy with the Jews 
of the first Christian century who built their many 
places of worship throughout Galilee after the 
Romans drove them from their haunts in Judea. 
Over the lintel of the door is a frieze of grapevine, 
and enough of the columns stand in place to show 
the plan of the synagogue in the days of Christ. 
Here another tradition locates the grave of Barak, 
and the Prophet Obadiah is said to have found his 
grave upon this hill. 

Meiron also is a place of pilgrimage, not only 
for the Jew, but also for those who seek to become 
familiar with the Judaism contemporary with early 
Christianity. This town on the slopes of Jebel 
Jermak is the most famous and highly revered pil- 

124 



THE SOURCES OF THE JORDAN 



grimage shrine of the Jews. Here, too, is a ruined 
synagogue of the first Christian century, and a 
little lower down the mountain were entombed 
Shammai and Hillel, the two most original and in- 
fluential teachers of Judaism. It was Rabbi Hillel 
who, according to Talmudic tradition, stated the 
Golden Rule negatively , and who was the teacher of 
Jesus. 

Across a valley from Meiron upon another 
mountain is builded the red-tiled roof city of Safed. 
It is a tiresome climb out of the valley to the city. 
As we rode up the slope we passed a group of la- 
borers from the fields. Several donkeys were loaded 
with brushwood, two or three men were riding don- 
keys, and a half dozen women bearing loads half 
as large as those which were fastened to the backs 
of the animals trudged along beside their idle mas- 
ters. The donkey and woman are the burden- 
bearers of Palestine. Woman under Moslem in- 
fluence is never the companion of man. She walks, 
and her husband rides ; she never sits at table with 
him ; she does not enter into the social life when he 
entertains his friends. She cooks his meals and 
bears his children, and when she no longer is able 
to do these things she is thrust out to die. Who- 
ever grows weary with misfortune, let him think 
of the wretchedness of an old woman in Moslem 

125 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



lands, and thank God that he never can fall to such 
depths of misery and despair ; and if any one seeks 
to bring happiness to his fellow-men, let him strive 
to unloosen the slavery of the woman whose face 
religion veils, and whose body it debases, and whose 
soul it crushes. 



126 



XIII 



THE GALILEAN LAKE 

After breakfast on April 11th we climbed to the 
castle hill which stands in the center of Safed. 
From the ruins of the summit there spreads out a 
most beautiful panorama. To the east the outlook 
is shut off by the long, high West Jordan ridge, 
whose steep descents lead into the valley plain. 
The western and southern slopes of this ridge lying 
across the valley from Safed are green with pas- 
turages, cultivated fields, and orchards of olive and 
fig. To the southeast the upper end of Galilee 
swings into view, and the lake as far south as 
Tiberias reveals itself in the green-blue morning 
mist. Long ridges of hills separated by brown 
valleys run down toward Tiberias and the sea. To 
the west the ridge of Jermak, with two or three 
villages on its sides, rises to the loftiest height in 
Western Palestine, and between this summit and 
the sea Hattin, the mountain of the Beatitudes and 
Mt. Tabor rise prominently into view. To the west 
el-Jish, fortified by Josephus, still maintains its 
post upon the crest of the ridge which sweeps round 

127 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



from Mt. Jermak. A dozen villages lying in sight 
upon the hills witness the truth of the tradition that 
Jesus, seeing Safed so loftily situated, drew His 
parable from it when He said, "A city set on a hill 
can not be hid." Hattin, the traditional mountain 
of the Beatitudes, at any rate commands a view of 
this city. 

Safed, the largest city of Galilee, notwithstand- 
ing that it is a hill-town and ever must be difficult 
of access, is growing constantly, and now has 
30,000 inhabitants. The increase of population is 
due to the immigration of European Jews. As we 
rode out of the city three Jewish women standing 
in a doorway spit at us. Judaism has not always 
ceased to be fanatical. The morning was spent in 
the ride to the site of Chorazin, over an extremely 
rough trail. The horses, used to uneven paths, 
stumbled along over fields of stone overgrown with 
weeds. Chorazin, once an important Galilean town, 
is now, like Bethsaida, a thistle-grown heap of 
stones. The remains of a synagogue are the chief 
source of interest. The ruins are nearly as large 
as the synagogue at Capernaum, and have attract- 
ive carvings on the native hard, black basalt. Clus- 
ters of grapes, the shield of David, human figures, 
leaves, and animals are finely cut in the ornamental 
lintels and columns. The stones, broken and muti- 
lated, lie in all positions, but enough to keep their 

128 



THE GALILEAN LAKE 



original location to show the size and general plan 
of the synagogue. It faced south, and from its 
triple doorways the sheen of distant Galilee could 
be seen. Some slight remains of houses still show 
that the town was no inconsiderable center of Gali- 
lee. Near the ruins are the grave of a sheikh and 
a sacred tree, which ever are the simple elements of 
a Bedouin shrine. Here the fellahin bring their 
plows for safe-keeping. No one would dare to vio- 
late the watch-care of the sacred place. Such scenes 
are common in Eastern Palestine. At Jebel Osha 
there is a shed built into the building which covers 
the traditional grave of Hosea. Various objects 
are to be seen in this shed safely protected from 
theft by the sacred shrine. 

An hour's ride over rough fields of stones and 
thistles brought us to Tell Hum, the accepted site 
of Capernaum on the shore of Galilee. The ruins 
of the synagogue, remarkably large for native 
architecture, are the property of the Franciscans, 
who have surrounded the excavations with a wall. 
Though the place is freely open to visitors, no pho- 
tographs may be taken. 

After the destruction of Jerusalem, the dis- 
persed Jews, unconquered in their devotion to Je- 
hovah, spread through Galilee, and the ruins of 
many synagogues still bear witness to their heroic 
faith. Those which we visited at el-Jish, Kafr 
? 129 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



Birim, and Meiron can not have been built earlier 
than the second Christian century. But whether 
the extensive ruins at Capernaum are the fragments 
of the synagogue which Jesus visited, or whether 
they too spring from a later century, the synagogue 
in Capernaum was unrivaled in magnificence by 
any house of worship in Galilee. The white lime- 
stone, a native marble, even in the ruins gleams so 
beautifully that the imagination builds a temple 
of rare beauty in which Judaism here beside the 
blue lake once lifted its heart in the worship of God. 

Here, as at Chorazin, the synagogue faced the 
south and the lake, and stood within a few rods 
of the shore. Many of the foundation stones are 
in place, and some of the pavement over which the 
Master walked has been uncovered. Broken col- 
umns, mutilated capitals and bases, lintels and door- 
posts richly carved, are scattered about in great 
confusion. Here He whom we still adore once spoke 
to a crowded audience who looked for a kingdom. 
Those men have faded out of memory, and the 
kingdom of their dreams never has come. But the 
kingdom of which He spoke has come, and still is 
coming, and men of all lands, many races and well- 
nigh different faiths continue to seek the place 
where He called Himself the Bread of Heaven and 
bade men enter into fullest fellowship with Himself. 

While we lunched in the garden which the Fran- 
130 



THE GALILEAN LAKE 



ciscans cultivate, a company of Russian pilgrims 
came seeking the scene of Jesus' sermon. Here, too, 
come the Jews to look upon the mournful white 
limestone memorials of the splendid days of their 
fathers. Perhaps there is no site in Palestine so 
desolate of civilization which is so fraught with 
interest for Jew and Christian. 

From Capernaum a road leads around the lake 
to Tiberias. Few afternoons can be spent so glori- 
ously as in such a journey along the shore of 
Galilee. Here every step suggests the presence of 
Jesus. For, although the plain of Gennesaret lies 
almost lifeless in the time of harvest, the hills be- 
hind it scarcely are inhabited, and the lake below 
is quiet, yet the sea has not changed since He stilled 
its storm and trod its waves, and the hills are as 
lofty and rugged, and Hermon's snows, silver at 
noon and rose and gold at dawn and sunset, yet 
glorify the whole countryside. 

On the road to Tiberias one passes the Ain 
et-Tabigha, the seven springs, which send their 
copious warm waters into the lake and produce in 
winter an excellent fishing-ground along the shore. 
Further on toward Tiberias is Khan Minyeh, whose 
ruins indicate that it once was an important city 
on the northern shore of Galilee. 

The plain of Gennesaret, lying between Khan 
Minyeh and Magdala, has an extremely rich soil. 

131 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

I never saw finer wheat-fields in any of the Western 
States. They were at the point of turning from 
green to gold. Here for the first time on this trip 
we saw horses at work in the fields. Hay was be- 
ing loaded, and oats were being raked into wind- 
rows. No binders or threshers have yet come to 
Palestine. Yet in spite of this fertility only a 
portion of the plain is under cultivation. Thistles 
as tall as one can reach when riding on horseback 
are as plentiful as grass and grain. This plain lies 
at the northwestern end of the lake. Just beyond, 
toward Tiberias, where the plain narrows to a thin 
strip between the mountains and the lake at its 
western side, is situated the tiny, dirty, mud-built 
village of Me j del, the Magdala of the time of 
Christ. Here was that Mary's home who came to 
love Him with such inimitable pure passion. One 
hopes that Mary's home was not so squalid, and 
Mary not so dirty, so tattered and tattooed as the 
women who now squat on the flea-cursed thresholds 
and beside the village manure-heaps and stare at the 
stranger. The night came down as we drew near 
Tiberias. The lake beside which we continued to 
ride was twice dead ; no breeze created a ripple, and 
no sail disturbed the wide expanse of sea. The twi- 
light scarcely shut out the view of the distant 
shore. The lake, here seven and a half miles wide, 
is narrowed by the smoke-free air into two, and the 

132 



THE GALILEAN LAKE 



half -moon, already shining when the sun sank be- 
hind the western mountains, still illumined the sleep- 
ing waters and beat its silver waves upon the slopes 
of the eastern shore. The stars awoke and, despite 
the moon, stood faithful at their posts ; and as we 
turned into our tents, pitched on the bank of the 
lake south of Tiberias, it took no unusual touch of 
mystic sympathy with these places immortalized 
by Jesus to create in us the perpetual miracle of 
Christianity, to bring us again into blessed fellow- 
ship with Him. 

The dawning of April 12th was rarely beauti- 
ful. Out along the ridge of the Jaulan beyond 
the lake the first beams of sunrise reddened the sky 
and set the mountain tops in sharp outline against 
the brightened sky-line. Below its rich hues the 
mountain ridge itself was wrapped in twilight, and 
a dark border of the lake also lay in shadow. 
Farther out the level lake was blushing under the 
warm kisses of the sun, and the rose-color spread 
over half the sea. The angel of beauty touching 
the lake, pale with the night, with his wand 
brought the flush of health and gladness into her 
lovely face and made her to be admired and adored. 

We spent the greater part of the day upon the 
lake. A sailboat with four rowers was at our service 
for several hours at a cost of fifteen francs. We 
alternately rowed and sailed down the western shore 

133 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



to the Jordan outlet. The river at its exit from 
the lake is about sixty feet wide and flows with a 
swift current. We landed at this point and watched 
a company of men, women, children, dogs, donkeys, 
and sheep ferried across the river. A short sail 
from the river along the southern shore of the lake 
brings one to Samiakh, a station on the Haifa- 
Damascus Railroad. Two motor-boats connect the 
station with Tiberias. After searching in vain 
through the miserable village for some reported 
antiquities, we took boat again for a sail up the 
lake. 

Gennesaret ever is attractive. Its moods ever 
vary. At one moment its surface seems frozen 
smooth. Within a few moments a breeze dips down 
over the hills, rouses ten thousand murmuring rip- 
ples upon the deathlike waters, and, filling the sail, 
speeds the boat unoared. Presently the breeze tires, 
and the lazy waters fall asleep. Then their surface 
genuinely mirrors the floating clouds, the green hill- 
slopes, and the occasional buildings on the shore. 
While we walked a half mile along the shore at sun- 
set, the breathless air was brushed aside by the wind 
rushing down the western hills, and the waves began 
to sweep across to the Gaulinitis coast, our tents 
flapped in the gusts, and a storm seemed imminent. 
Within the hour the air again was dead, and the 
waves sank listlessly down. By another hour the 

134 



THE GALILEAN LAKE 



wind was blowing westward, and the waves beating 
against the beach below the tents sent us to sleep 
with their music. 

Tiberias is a striking illustration of the ineffi- 
ciency of the present government. It is the richest 
municipality in Palestine, yet none is dirtier, more 
unsanitary, and more opposed to progress. The 
lake is full of fish. Dr. Torrence, of the Scottish 
Medical Mission, told us that he had seen a school 
of fish a mile long and fourth of a mile wide ; that 
few bodies of water have such varieties and such 
quantities. Yet there are no adequate or modern 
methods to take and market them. The natives 
know no way to fish the deep waters, and can not 
market their catch in distant towns except in the 
winter months. The governor of the town who pre- 
ceded the present incumbent planted a few shade 
trees along the streets. His successor let them die 
and planted a few others. German, English, and 
French companies have sought concessions to intro- 
duce modern methods, but in vain, The Jews 
wished to install a modern water system at their 
own expense, but this request was refused. The 
hot baths, three-fourths of a mile south of Tiberias, 
are the property of the city, and are leased an- 
nually. No lessee will keep the buildings in repair. 
Everywhere there is mismanagement, inefficiency, in- 
ordinate selfishness, and superstition. English suz- 

135 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



erainty would be a godsend to Syria, and for this 
consummation all civilized men should labor. 

The road from Tiberias to Beisan winds along 
the lake to the south and through the Jordan Valley 
for several miles. The day was viciously hot, ex- 
cept when some puff of wind breathed across the 
shut-in plain. Near the outlet of the lake a low 
hill, a third of a mile long and a fifth as wide, 
roughly parallels the lake and is separated from the 
higher ground by a depression. This ridge once 
was fortified and was among the last Galilean towns 
to yield to the conquering troops of Titus. Since 
Josephus states that the place was not taken until 
an approach was made by sea, the depression once 
must have been an arm of the lake, or at least a 
marsh which could be flooded by a dam at its Jordan 
end. It is now under cultivation by one of the 
several Jewish colonies scattered through the Jor- 
dan Valley. These colonies have laid large areas 
under cultivation and show what the soil may be 
made to yield. They ought to be multiplied by 
the score. The Bedouin pitches his black tents be- 
side the stone buildings of the colonies, and, though 
the Jews have given them two decades of higher 
civilization, they learn no lessons of progress. So 
their ancestors two thousand years ago witnessed 
Greek and Roman build splendid cities, arch their 
streams with bridges, and traverse their land with 

136 



THE GALILEAN LAKE 



roads, but they let these ancient empires come and 
go, and they live still as their fathers lived at the 
dawn of history. They drive their herds of camels 
and cattle, flocks of sheep and goats down to the 
summer pasturages and pools of their Jordan, and 
wander back again into their mountain ravines and 
hill-slopes when the rains have freshened their blis- 
tered brooks and grasses. Their life is the wan- 
derer's. The Bedouin is no cleaner, no better 
clothed, no finer housed, no broader and fuller- 
minded, no more contributory to the greatness of 
mankind through centuries of watching the grazing 
of his flocks. But he has one virtue — he never asks 
for baksheesh. 



137 



XIV 



THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL-ESDRAE- 
LON 

Between its exit from Galilee and its inflow into 
the Dead Sea, the Jordan winds a distance of 185 
miles, although the direct distance between the two 
bodies of water is but sixty miles. During this 
course the river descends 610 feet. The modern 
Arabic name of the Jordan is Esh-Sheria El-Kebir, 
and this means "The large watering-place. 55 After 
several miles of riding beside the river 5 s earliest 
windings we come to the upper of the two bridges 
which now span the Jordan. It is a quaint, old, 
parapetless, camel-shaped arch of stones, but it 
serves for man and beast. Those who travel by 
rail from Haifa to Damascus will see it at their 
left as the train crosses the Jordan. 

Turning away from the river at this bridge and 
climbing in a southwesterly direction, an hour 5 s 
riding brings the traveler up the western ridge to 
Bellevoir, one of the hilltops fortified by the late 
Crusaders, and afterwards captured by Saladin. 
It is worthy of its name. It offers one of the mag- 
nificent views of Palestine. Hermon 5 s snows bound 

138 



THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL 



the north; Galilee is in its foreground. Gaulinitis 
and Gilead's hills and tablelands can be seen for 
weary miles. The Yarmuk opens out its winding 
chasm far into the eastern haze. The Jabbok to 
the south marks the southern limit of Gilead. The 
serpentine Jordan gleams from Gennesaret almost 
to its mouth. Bethshan, guarding the entrance 
from the valley to the Plains of Jezreel and Es- 
draelon, is directly south. The long ridge of Gil- 
boa burns beneath the mid-afternoon sun. Esdra- 
elon stretches toward the Great Sea. Little Her- 
mon awaits the sunset. Tabor keeps his solitary 
post high above the tableland and the long ridges 
leading northward toward the Anti-Lebanon. The 
ruins of the fortress of King Fulke witness not 
only to his military judgment, but also to his sense 
of beauty. Visitors to Palestine by no means should 
fail to make the climb to this mountain summit. 
Baedeker scarcely mentions it, but the view should 
be double-starred. A deep moat in excellent pres- 
ervation surrounds the walls, of which great por- 
tions yet stand. The only unpleasant feature is 
the modern, squalid village which fills the space 
within the old walls. 

Three hours' riding southward across a down- 
ward-sloping plain, over two rugged wadies, brings 
the traveler to Beisan, the Scythopolis of the 
Greeks, and the Bethshan of the Old Testament. 

139 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



In the days of Jesus this fortified city was one of 
the important centers of the Decapolis, and the only 
city of this confederation in Western Palestine. A 
number of the Hellenistic towns of Eastern Pales- 
tine, such as Gerasa, Gadara, and Hippos, which 
formed this political association known as the De- 
capolis, I have already mentioned. Bethshan stands 
at the outlet of the great Esdraelon- Jezreel plain, 
where it falls away into the Jordan Valley, and 
from of old was the outpost of Judea. Through 
this gateway the invaders of the land from north 
and east ever entered. In the distribution of terri- 
tory Bethshan was assigned to Manasseh, but the 
Hebrews never were quite able to occupy the place. 
The present village lies close to the ruins of the 
Greek city, which consists of the usual fragments 
of walls and columns. An amphitheater, which pre- 
serves not much more than the outlines of the old 
place of pleasure and cruelty, is, as usual, the strik- 
ing center of the ancient city. Here Christians suf- 
fered under the Roman persecution, and here the 
Greeks, filling the arena with water, gladdened their 
hearts with sea-fights. The spectators faced the 
fortress, but could also see past it into the hills of 
Gilead. 

At sunset we climbed the deserted hilltop where 
once the fortress stood, and witnessed again the 
splendor of an evening twilight in a smokeless land. 

140 



THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL 



To the west the long ridge of Gilboa, rising far 
down near the Jordan Valley, crept up toward the 
sunset, but just beneath the utmost west the moun- 
tains slowly died in the Plain of Esdraelon, leaving 
a fire-filled crater between them and Little Hermon 
beyond. For nearly an hour the flame flared 
heavenward and lit far to the east the mountains of 
Gilead with glory. From the Yarmuk to the Jab- 
bok the whole land was rosy-hued. Gaulinitis and 
the Yarmuk gorge were dark sea-green, and Moab, 
far south, was faintly purple. Beneath these sun- 
born hues a hundred colors, springing from the 
different heights, slopes, and uses of the land, 
played along the eastern valley and mountains. 
Below the mountains the Jordan crept along in the 
shadows, and scattered over its valley were hundreds 
of the black tents of the Bedouins. 

As the night, illumined by the moon, fell across 
Gilboa, one could feel something of the tragedy 
which here befell King Saul. His army was en- 
camped at Jezreel, and, stealing away in the night 
to consult the Witch of Endor, he came back to 
his troops a defeated general. At morning the 
Philistines joined battle, and all day long pressed 
him sorely. The men of Israel retreated into the 
hills of Gilboa, and when night fell were scattered. 
Their king and his sons were dead, and their bodies 
carried to Bethshan to be dishonored by being hung 

141 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



upon its walls. Here, too, came the men of Jabesh 
Gilead, a dozen or more miles across the valley 
and up the rugged hills beyond, and rescued the 
bodies of their king and princes from further in- 
famy. 

After dinner four of our number were con- 
ducted by a Greek Christian to his home to partici- 
pate in a religious service to be conducted by a 
missionary from Jerusalem. It was a short walk 
through the moonlit streets, under which mellow 
light the dirt of the squalid village was hidden, and 
under the trees which almost touched above our 
heads — the only tree-lined streets which we have 
seen in Palestine. The place of service was reached. 
We passed through a large door into an open court, 
where there was a congregation of goats and cattle. 
A few steps led upward to a door opening into a 
room beside the court. Rugs and matting covered 
the floor, and cushions, upon which we sat cross- 
legged, were spread along two walls. The human 
congregation gathered slowly, but a kid played in 
and out of the door, and through the door and 
window there came the bleat and smell of goats. 
The walls of the room were plastered, and one 
kerosene lamp, fastened to the wall, gave the light. 
Some hymns were sung; prayer was offered; John, 
our dragoman, read the story of the Prodigal and 
translated the missionary's message. The men who 

142 



THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL 



composed the audience dropped in from time to 
time until thirteen were present. A Moslem and a 
Jew were among the number. When the Jew en- 
tered, the Christians arose quickly to throw him 
out, but the missionary quieted them. During the 
service the host passed the cigarettes, a donkey put 
his head through the door, two cats clinched in fight 
came tumbling through the door and whirled out 
again, and the meeting closed with coffee. During 
the whole time the women and children were outside 
with the goats and donkeys. Once a mother handed 
a child into its father's arms, who seemed pleased 
to hold it. The men appeared to have had a pleas- 
ant evening, and the entertainers trusted that some 
new emphasis upon the meaning of Christianity 
might have been given to these few Christians far 
from priest and church. 

A ride of three and a half miles up the plain 
from Beisan brings one to the abrupt northern face 
of Mt. Gilboa. A similar distance with the moun- 
tains to the left and the Plain of Jezreel on the 
right, alive with flocks and nodding with grain, 
leads to the Spring of Harod, or Gideon's Foun- 
tain. Within a cavern a large spring pours out 
of the mountain ridge and forms a pool which 
might irrigate large areas of the Jezreel Plain. On 
the heights above, Gideon encamped his assembled 
patriots, and three miles distant across the plain 

143 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



the confederate Midianites and Amalekites waited 
battle at the foot of Little Hermon. Here Gideon's 
three hundred men lapped the water, and from here 
he led them through the night and fell on the terri- 
fied invaders. Down the long Jezreel Valley the 
battle rolled, past Bethshan, across Jordan, and be- 
yond Penuel he pursued the fleeing enemy until 
their kings were slain and their forces annihilated. 

Another hour distant from Bethshan along the 
southern side of the plain, and Jezreel is reached, 
set upon a jutting spur of Gilboa. There is noth- 
ing here of Ahab's capital but bloody memories. 
It is not easy to stand in the squalid village of 
mud-plastered stone houses, full of fleas and filth, 
and reconstruct Naboth's vineyard, which Ahab 
coveted, or the palace from whose window Jehu 
ordered Jezebel to be thrown to the hungry dogs. 
Rarely are any remains to be found of the stateliest 
Jewish cities. It is only when the Roman or the 
Greek built upon the Hebrew hilltops that some- 
thing still remains beyond the site to aid the imag- 
ination to rehabilitate the past. Just below the 
hill on the road to Shunem there is to be seen a well 
with the curb built around it. So Jacob's Well 
must have appeared when Jesus asked a drink of 
the woman of Samaria. The woman shown in the 
picture has come from Jezreel to this wayside well. 
Her water-pitcher stands at her feet, into which 

144 



THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL 



she is in the act of pouring the water just drawn. 
The vessel used to draw the water is one of the 
many five-gallon cans in which gasoline and petro- 
leum have been shipped to Palestine. The size of 
the well-curb easily may be estimated. The long, 
sloping hill is the spur of Gilboa, upon which Jez- 
reel is built. 

It is perhaps four miles from Jezreel almost 
directly north across the plain to Shunem, where 
Elisha was wont to be entertained. There are now 
no houses in which an Elisha would care to be a 
guest, let us hope, but the sun still beats in fury 
upon the heads of children until they need some one 
to wash and nurse them. A typical Shunem resi- 
dence is here shown. The picture was taken on 
horseback across the wall which separated the tiny 
court, or dooryard, from the street. The roof is 
made of reeds and poles covered with earth, and 
the walls are sun-dried brick plastered with mud. 
There are no windows, the floors are of earth, and 
thin wooden doors swing in the openings, through 
which the occupants stoop to enter. The imagina- 
tion can not cope with the actual squalor, wretched- 
ness, and filth. Shunem lies at the southern edge 
of Little Hermon, and an hour's riding from the 
village suffices to reach the mountain's top, marked 
by a white weli, from which the whole country 
widens out into magnificent distances. 

145 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

From the tomb, directly east, another shoulder 
of the mountain shuts out Bellevoir and the Jordan, 
but beyond them Gilead gleamed in the sunlight. 
Southeast Bethshan lay glistening in the plain; 
Gilboa's billowy ridge, clear as light can make it, 
is directly south. Between it and Little Herman 
the Plain of Jezreel sweeps up from the Jordan and 
is continued by Esdraelon to the Great Sea. From 
the Jabbok, the northern boundary of Moab, to 
the head of Carmel, jutting into the Mediterranean, 
the whole width of Palestine which really counted 
in its history lies in one view. At no other point 
in Palestine is this wide stretch of plain to be seen. 
To the northwest, upon a long ridge creeping up 
from the Plain of Esdraelon, nestles Nazareth. 
More to the north, at the foot of Little Hermon, 
is Nain. Directly north Tabor keeps his post, and 
above his head, sixty-five miles away, Hermon 
taunts with his snows the heated summits of his 
namesake (the thermometer stood on Little Hermon 
at 98 degrees at 1 P.M.). This ridge, with its 
several spurs, stands like an island in the Plain of 
Esdraelon. Sweeping down from the northwest, 
the great plain is divided by the ridge. The wider 
stream flows between Jezreel and Shunem, and be- 
comes the Plain of Jezreel to the Jordan valley. A 
narrower arm turns to the north of Little Hermon, 
and, passing between it and Mt. Tabor, gradually 

146 



p 



525 



THE PLAIN OF JEZREEL 



ascends to the tableland which overlooks the Jordan 
at Bellevoir. This is one of the magnificent views 
of Palestine. It is unique in that it presents in one 
view the whole of the plain from Southern Gilead 
to the end of Carmel, sixty miles of grain-fields, 
flocks, and herds, Beduoin tents, and squalid vil- 
lages. 

It requires twenty minutes to descend from Lit- 
tle Hermon to Nain, a tiny cluster of houses directly 
north across the mountain from Shunem. The vil- 
lage is dead, and there is no passing genius to 
quicken it into life. Winding around the lower 
slopes of Little Hermon an hour leads to Endor, 
built round a cavern in the mountain side. In this 
cavern is a pool of water, and the dim cave is 
pointed out as the witch's house to which despairing 
Saul came the night before his fatal battle. There 
are women of Endor who still seek the cavern, and 
perhaps they are that famous personage's descend- 
ants, for they seem to have drifted from woman- 
hood with their slovenly habits and vacant minds. 

Two hours across the northern arm of Esdraelon 
and up the steep hills among which Nazareth lies, 
and the traveler reaches one of the Palestinian 
places which he ever has longed to visit — the boy- 
hood and earlier manhood home of Jesus. The ap- 
proach from the south over the path up the hills 
yields a thrilling first view of Nazareth. White 

147 




A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

buildings with red tile roofs in the midst of or- 
chards in a rough amphitheater facing southward 
present one of the most picturesque town scenes of 
Palestine. Our tents were pitched in the midst of 
an olive orchard, and we feel asleep with memories 
of another orchard, where 

The olives were not blind to Him, 
The little gray leaves were kind to Him, 
The thorn-tree had a mind to Him, 
When into the woods He came. 



148 



XV 



FROM NAZARETH TO MT. CARMEL 

Two hours are required to ride from Nazareth to 
Mt. Tabor, upon whose summit there have been 
buildings for at least twenty-one centuries. Iso- 
lated as it is on the south by the Plain of Esdra- 
elon from Southern Palestine, and rising higher 
than the hills and tableland to the north, it ever 
has been conspicuous in the narratives of the land. 
The Eighty-ninth Psalm so memorializes it: 

The north and the south, Thou hast created them, 
Tabor and Hermon rejoice in Thy name. 

The view from Tabor is very extensive, but it is 
not superior to that obtained from Little Hermon. 
Tabor brings into the scene the hill of Bellevoir 
and the northern tip of Gennesaret, but it loses the 
direct sweep from the boundary of Moab to the 
head of Carmel, and Jezreel, the key to the plain, 
is completely hidden. Tabor is only one hundred 
and fifty feet higher than its neighbor, Little Her- 
mon, but it is much more difficult to climb. Both 
Greeks and Latins have a monastery, and each 
claims that its church stands upon the site of the 

149 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



Transfiguration. The Latins show the ruins of a 
Crusaders' church with three chapels to commemo- 
rate the request of Peter, and the Greeks have built 
over the remains of a fourth-century church. 
There is little probability that the Transfiguration 
occurred on Mt. Tabor. 

Two hours over fields and slightly-used paths 
through the scorching heat brought us from Tabor 
to Cana, brought forever into history through the 
miracle wrought by Jesus. The Latins claim that 
their church stands on the site where the marriage 
feast was held, and the Greeks assert that they 
have the original six waterpots. The villagers 
claim that they have the spring from which the 
water was drawn. Through an opening two and a 
half by three feet the women climb down some eight 
feet to the water. There are no steps, but the 
women stick their bare feet into the crevices between 
the layers of stone. After washing their feet, they 
fill their jars, climb out, and, placing the jar upon 
their head, march away with extreme stateliness. 
Fortunately the water flows rapidly, and when 
brought to the surface is very clear and very re- 
freshing on a hot day — much better than if turned 
into wine. It takes an hour to ride to Nazareth, 
and our white tents under the olive trees never were 
more inviting after the hot day on the rough hills 
to the east and south of the boyhood home of Jesus. 

150 



NAZARETH AND MT. CARMEL 



There is very little in the Nazareth of to-day 
which resembles the town of Jesus' boyhood. The 
town has slidden down into the valley, its buildings 
are modern, its sites where the humble life of the 
Master was spent have been seized upon by the 
great Christian confessions and transformed out 
of all resemblance to the appearance they had for 
Him. The Latins show where the angel appeared 
to Mary, and the Greeks claim to have built over 
the spring where Joseph first may have seen her, 
as the girls of Nazareth may be seen to-day, com- 
ing with her jar for the pure water needed by the 
household. The Latins now are building a fine 
church over the traditional site of Joseph's work- 
shop. None of this site-claiming is inspiring, and 
all is wholly conjectural. It is enough to know that 
here the boyhood and the maturing manhood of 
Jesus were lived. At the center of the town is 
"Mary's Well," where women constantly are com- 
ing to wash their clothes and to fill their water-jars. 

A twenty-minutes' climb from the spring to the 
hills west of Nazareth lifts one into something real. 
Another of Palestine's panoramas comes into view. 
To the east the ranges of Gilead and the outline of 
the Jordan valley are seen ; to the south Esdraelon, 
the scene of Israel's victories and defeats, Shunem 
and Jezreel, and the road to Jerusalem, which the 
Holy Family, like other pilgrims, took to the an- 

151 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

nual festival; to the west the long ridge of Carmel, 
with its thirteen miles of rise and fall from the 
place of sacrifice to its head, running into the Medi- 
terranean. There, too, is the sea, with the harbor 
of Haifa, and ships at anchor, and the blue waters 
stretching northward. In the northern foreground 
is the Plain of Asochis and the isolated hill of Sep- 
phoris, once the capital of Galilee, where Herod 
meditated rebellion, and from which he was ban- 
ished. Here passes the caravan road to Damascus, 
and beyond the high ridge of Jebel Jermak, the 
loftiest in Western Palestine, northwest, Safed lies 
in a hollow, with a mountain notch behind. The 
city is set on a hill which can not be hid, and far 
beyond it Hermon, the one snow-capped mountain 
of the land, pushes himself through the morning 
mist. Here the boy Jesus often must have come 
and dreamed of His kingdom. The whole ancient 
world in its representatives passed before Him. 
Jewish pilgrims longing for their Messiah, the 
Herods seeking their own pleasure and power, mer- 
chants with rich bales of goods for the chief markets 
from Rome to Babylon, legions of the empire carry- 
ing their eagles and their massive energy to every 
hilltop and fertile plain from the Great Sea to the 
desert — all this He saw, saw from the hills at His 
door, and all this wealth of ideas form the colored 
background of His teaching, and make up the 

152 



NAZARETH AND MT. CARMEL 



world from which He ever sought to lead men into 
His spiritual kingdom. 

There is one Nazarene site of great interest 
seized upon by ecclesiastical tradition for which 
there is much probability. This is the synagogue 
in which Jesus declared that Isaiah's prophecy was 
fulfilled in Himself, and from which His incensed 
townsmen took Him to throw Him down a precipice. 
There is historical evidence that a synagogue stood 
here as early as the sixth century, and since the 
synagogue stood somewhere, and since the shape 
and size of the present area correspond with the 
synagogues of the first century, and since the an- 
cient pavement is much below the present street, 
there is no serious objection to the identification of 
this site. 

Our next objective was el-Muhraka, the place 
of sacrifice, upon the eastern end of Mt. Carmel. 
For some time riders follow the carriage road to 
Haifa, then, as the hills fade out in Esdraelon, the 
path leads directly across the plain to the Carmelite 
Monastery, which is built upon the traditional site 
of Elijah's sacrifice. There is much land unculti- 
vated at this end of the plain. Flocks and grain- 
fields take up much area, but a gl*eat deal of fertile 
soil is given over to flowers and thistles. The River 
Kishon, here about twenty feet in width, is a 
muddy, reed-grown stream, and difficult to ford. 

153 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



Two baggage mules got down and had to be un- 
loaded in mid-stream, with much-wet beds, and all 
dissoluble foods floated away. We had a striking 
commentary upon Deborah's rejoicing over the 
kings of Canaan: 

The River Kishon swept them away. 
That ancient river, the River Kishon. 

Our tents were pitched near a spring and a de- 
serted village. The latter is one of the curious 
sights of the land. There was a similar deserted 
village at Bethsaida, and another on the eastern 
shore of Galilee. The whole village moves to an- 
other site, and perhaps with autumn or another 
season they come back, open the closed doors, build 
up their dung-heaps anew, watch their flocks, and 
till their patches of ground. 

Three-fourths of an hour are needed to climb 
to the Carmelite hospice and monastery, perched 
upon a craglike summit of Eastern Carmel. Half- 
way to the top is a spring, or rather a well, from 
which may have come the water for the story of 
Elijah's sacrifice. From the roof of the monastery 
the Plain of Edraelon-Jezreel may be seen, far be- 
yond Ahab's ancient capital, and more distant still 
the bluffs of Gilead beyond the Jordan. Looking 
seaward along the top of Carmel, two-thirds of its 
length lies spread out in a rough tableland broken 

154 



NAZARETH AND MT. CARMEL 



by many flat hills, and gradually rising to its lofti- 
est height near the Druse village of Esfiya. There 
are no trees. There is much shrubbery, but even 
this is being cut down by charcoal burners. Here 
and there are patches of grain, and goats pasture 
freely on the rocky slopes. Carmel ever must have 
been a school of spiritual grandeur. Neither the 
plowman, nor the merchant, nor the soldier climbed 
its steep ascents from their proper paths in the 
plains below. The outlaw and the prophet with his 
world-different wish to draw apart from the fa- 
miliar haunts of mankind alone sought the forest 
and caves, the loneliness and the solitude of Carmel. 
Once Hebrew civilization rolled up these mountains. 
Elijah, who championed the cause of patriotism 
and a Deity in whom men were beginning to find 
justice and righteousness, summoned the king of 
Israel and the foreign priests whom he patronized 
into this mountain fastness. It was no petty crisis 
in Israel's and the world's history. Crude and cruel, 
fiery and vengeful, Jehovah's representative may 
have been, but he turned Israel back from the ob- 
livion of her Semitic neighbors and bequeathed to 
her the ethical foundation upon which later proph- 
ets were to build the mighty edifice of ethical mon- 
otheism. 



155 



XIV 



THE RIDE TO OMRI'S CAPITAL 

Two hours' riding from the low hill Tell el-Kassis, 
on the right bank of the Kishon, the traditional site 
of the destruction of the priests of Baal, along the 
Haifa-Jenin carriage track, brings the traveler to 
Tell el-Mutesellim, the Megiddo of the Bible. The 
hill rises beside the great highway between Egypt 
and Babylonia, and was an important place at least 
twenty centuries before our era. Near here Sisera 
suffered defeat at the hands of Barak and Deborah. 
Josiah, thinking himself strong enough to meet 
Pharaoh-Necho, was slain by the Egyptians near 
this ancient city, and carried by his servants to be 
sepulchered at Jerusalem. Here, too, Ahaziah, 
slain at the order of fiery Jehu, died, and also was 
carried to the City of David for burial. The hill 
has been excavated sufficiently to show the enclosing 
wall with its towers, palaces, fortress, houses, and 
temple. Thistles and lentils now contend for the 
summit of the buried remains of the once proud city 
which Solomon enlarged and fortified, his chief sup- 
port to the north. 

156 



THE RIDE TO OMRPS CAPITAL 



The site of Tanaach is an hour's ride to the 
southeast, and, like Megiddo, is on the northern 
edge of the Plain of Megiddo, which dips south- 
ward in a vast bay toward Jenin from the Plain of 
Esdraelon. Excavations show this site to have been 
a pre-Israelitish town. It is memorialized in the 
Song of Deborah: 

Then fought the kings of Canaan 

In Tanaach by the waters of Megiddo. 

The excavators brought to light clay vessels 
containing the bodies of children used in sacrifice. 
One of the objects of worship, once so common in 
Palestine and now so rare, is to be seen in the temple 
ruins at Tanaach. In a small court whose walls are 
partly extant, a mazzebah, or stone pillar, has 
fallen, and its upper end now lies against one of the 
walls. These sacred stones stood beside the altar 
of sacrifice for many centuries in the customary 
Canaanitish and Hebrew shrines, and in the lofty 
religion of the prophets became the object of their 
scorn. This is one of the very few such stones now 
to be seen in the land. 

Here, as at Megiddo, the excavations make clear 
the small area used by the important cities of three 
thousand years ago. They do not cover the space 
occupied by the important towns of to-day, and 
the foundations of temples, towers, public buildings, 

157 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



and private houses show them to have been built 
with little more magnificence than the squalid vil- 
lages which now dot the hills. Where the Roman 
and the Greek did not enter, the Canaanitish and 
Jewish towns show little noteworthy architecture. 
There is no suggestion of grandeur. Walls and 
cisterns seem to have been the essentials of an an- 
cient city, and these two sites show that these im- 
portant places were not lacking in these prerequi- 
sites of civic life. 

The Plain of Megiddo, along which we rode 
another two hours to reach Jenin, is better culti- 
vated than the larger plain. Wheat and barley 
fields extended for miles. Long camel-trains on 
the way to Haifa pass by — nineteen in one caravan, 
led by a man riding a donkey. Fellahin plowing, 
some Bedouin tents, large olive orchards, barefooted 
women following their lords on donkey-back or 
bearing jars of water from the spring to their vil- 
lage, are the ever-changing scenes along the way. 
Once at noon a shepherd was drawing water at a 
well for his goats, a second flock patiently wait- 
ing near until the first had quenched their thirst, 
while down the hillside wound a long line of sheep 
following their shepherd to their accustomed well. 
One never grows weary of the plowing and shep- 
herding scenes of Palestine. All over the land, on 
each side of the Jordan, in March and April the 

158 



THE RIDE TO OMRFS CAPITAL 



fields were being prepared for the summer crops. 
The plow is the same which is seen in Egypt and 
Asia Minor. A tiny metal or wooden share, which 
does not turn the soil, but only scratches it, is held 
by one handle and drawn by various animals. Oc- 
casionally the water buffalo drags the plow, some- 
times a camel or a donkey is so used, and often 
cows, but the usual animlals are the slow, patient 
oxen. Sometimes these beasts rebel against the 
continual goading of their driver and run away, 
dragging the plow helter-skelter across the fields. 
In a picture I have the fellahin holds his goad in 
his left hand, the plow-handle is under his left arm, 
and his wife, with her skirt tucked in her girdle, 
stands at his side, ready to drop the seed in the 
tiny furrow. Upon her head she carries her basket 
of seed. All these moving pictures of Syrian life 
were occurring in the presence of buried cities, 
plains fertilized by scores of ancient bloody battles, 
in the shadow of Gilboa, Carmel, Little Hermon, 
and Mt. Tabor, and within sight of the once proud 
capital of Ahab and the birth-village of Him whose 
kingdom, founded in no unholy deed, still rules in 
the life of mankind. 

Our camp, pitched for the night at the edge 
of Jenin, the En-Gannin of the Old Testament, 
which is still a fountain-watered garden, was struck 
on the morning of April 18th for the intensely in- 

159 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



teresting ride past Dothan to Samaria and Shechem. 
It takes little imagination to read backward from 
the herdsmen and their flocks to be seen to-day in 
the plain and around the well of Dothan to the 
brethren of Joseph, who had wandered here with 
their flocks when Joseph, bringing a message from 
their father, became the victim of their jealousy. 

Samaria, the city of Ahab and Herod, lay 
within a few miles of Dothan upon an irregular 
oval hill rising some three hundred feet in a basin 
of the Samaritan hills. In every direction summits 
rise as high, and nearly the whole circle of hills 
is loftier than the site chosen for the capital of the 
northern kingdom. From east to west the hill is 
nearly three-fourths of a mile long, and in width 
is from twenty rods to a third of a mile. These 
slopes are terraced, and are covered with olives and 
grain-fields, where barley and wheat were on the 
verge of harvest. Within the above area is an- 
other elevation from fifteen to thirty feet in height, 
and upon this acropolis stood the ancient city. 
King Omri acted wisely in choosing this hill for 
his capital. It is, considering its accessibility, the 
most easily fortified site in Samaria. The Assyri- 
ans required three years to reduce it, and John 
Hyrcanus besieged the city through a twelvemonth 
before it fell. Under Herod the Great it became 
a yet stronger post. Then, in addition to its pos- 

160 



THE RIDE TO OMRPS CAPITAL 

sibilities of fortification, the great grain-fields of 
Esdraelon and Megiddo and Dothan are not far 
away, and these rocky hills blossom with fig and 
olive. Within three hours' ride of Samaria there 
were to be seen tens of thousands of olive trees in 
blossom, and every winding valley and sudden ex- 
pansion of plain among the hills were burdened 
with heavy grain. It seems impossible, on looking 
at the rocky hills which slope down to Jenin and 
gradually grow grander toward Samaria and 
Shechem, to realize the grain and fruit resources 
of the land. Near the ancient capital two caravan 
routes swept by with their wealth of merchandise — 
from Haifa and Esdraelon down to Shechem and 
Jerusalem, and another from Egypt north to Da- 
mascus and the east. Thus Samaria, set amid fer- 
tile hills, within a few hours of Palestine's great 
granaries, on the great highways and isolated from 
its immediate mountain neighbors, had the superior 
location of the two capitals of the land. 

Not all of this magnificent past of Israel's kings 
is gone. The hills still express the splendor which 
awoke the luxury in Samaria's princes, so fiercely 
condemned by the prophet from Tekoa. Then the 
excavations reveal something of the old importance 
of the place. Many fragments of ancient build- 
ings are scattered everywhere. At the lowest levels 
of the ruins upon the highest level of the hill are 

161 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



portions of the walls built by Omri and Ahab, but 
these crudely cut stones scarce suggest the grandeur 
and luxury which Amos denounced. Those accus- 
tomed to modern architecture alone, or familiar 
with Roman, Greek, and Egyptian buildings, 
scarcely can imagine the comparative pettiness of 
Hebrew walled cities, which the scant remains war- 
rant us imaginatively to reconstruct. It is difficult 
to account for the strength of Samaria in Hebrew 
times from the scant ruins which have been uncov- 
ered. No doubt more extended excavations will 
reveal a more magnificent city which Hosea lost to 
Sargon. 

It was Herod who made Samaria architecturally 
great. On the side of the hill, in a sort of amphi- 
theater, in the midst of waving grain, stand 
weather-beaten, lonely columns, perhaps a dozen 
testifying to the greatness of the stadium. On 
the lower of the two hill-levels a street of double 
columns, nearly a mile in length, ran from east 
to west through the town. Many of these columns 
yet stand, though their capitals are gone, and the 
bases of many others enable the whole to be traced. 
The west gate consisted of two towers, enough of 
which is still in position to give a correct idea of 
the strength and magnificence of the western termi- 
nal of the colonnaded street. On the eastern side 
of the upper level are rich ruins of a basilica whose 

162 



THE RIDE TO OMRPS CAPITAL 



pavements and columns, even in their shame, reflect 
their former glory. On the higher portions of the 
hill are the remains of a temple, and perhaps a 
palace on its southern side. The temple is ap- 
proached by a long flight of steps eighty feet in 
breadth, which indicate something of the splendor 
of the temple itself. The buildings which were to 
the south of the temple are in such confused ruin 
that for those not archaeologists little more can be 
said than that the Roman walls are distinguished 
from the earlier Hebrew foundations by the size 
of the stones and the excellence of their cutting. 

Whoever contemplates that curious and in- 
tensely interesting figure of Jewish history, Herod 
the Great, will see him in his strength and weakness 
at Samaria. Few cities which his genius enriched 
were transformed so magically. It must have been 
a truly splendid capital, rich in Roman architec- 
ture, throbbing with cosmopolitan life, stirred by 
Herodian ambitions, and prodigal with imitations 
of his passions. Here Herod married Mariamne, 
and here in jealous rage he put her to death. But 
remorse cruelly revenged her in Herod's temporary 
insanity. "He would frequently call for her," 
writes Josephus, "and lament for her in a most 
indecent manner, and he was so far overcome of 
his passion that he would command his servants to 
call for Mariamne as if she were still alive and could 

163 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



still hear them." It took a rebellion to arouse him 
from his insane despair. Something of all this 
tragedy comes back again in the contemplation of 
these ruins. Something too of the selfish luxury 
and oppression, the silken couches and ivory beds, 
the palaces stored with robbery and oppression, the 
kine of Bashan who left off filling water-jars and 
invited their lords to feasts of revelry, something 
of the ritual which was the whole of religion, comes 
rushing through the many centuries, and one feels 
the burning oratory of Amos as he comes from his 
humble Tekoan home to denounce at Bethel in the 
name of his righteous Jehovah the cruel, pleasure- 
seeking princes who were crushing the land. 

History here once more quivers with life. The 
intervening ages fade, and Amos and Jeroboam 
stand face to face. That Amos, the voice of right- 
eousness, is vindicated, is seen, not only by the 
broken stones which Sargon overthrew, but also 
by the silent grain-fields and orchards which cover 
the magnificent structures built by another pleas- 
ure-loving prince above the ancient ruins. 



164 



XVII 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 

Our tents for two successive nights were pitched 
under some olive trees at the edge of Nablous, the 
ancient Shechem, to enable us to visit Sychar's 
well and to climb Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim. 

A leisurely hour and a half of riding along 
the terraces and over the stone-heaps of the moun- 
tain-side brings one to the summit of Mt. Ebal. 
These narrow terraces are covered with grain, some 
olive trees, and a vast amount of cactus. The lat- 
ter plant is cultivated in many parts of Palestine. 
In addition to its providing a most protective fence 
for gardens, its leaves are eaten by camels and cat- 
tle when the pasturage grows scant in summer, and 
the fruit is relished by the natives. The view from 
Ebal is the most extensive in Palestine. Directly 
south is the valley between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. 
Ebal, and above it is the rolling ridge of the south- 
ern mountain itself, in one of whose hollows gleamed 
a dozen of the white tents of the Samaritans making 
ready for their Passover. Beyond Gerizim a sea of 

165 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

billowy mountain-tops rolls southward, the highest 
point directly toward David's City, and slopes east 
and west toward the Mediterranean and the Jordan. 
Just beyond the farthest wave of hills lies Jeru- 
salem, thirty miles away. To the southwest the 
mountains become subdued, and the plain stretches 
seaward, its terminus marked by a ribbon of reddish 
sand. A touch of green interrupting the reddish 
yellow to the southeast marks the orange groves of 
Jaffa. The sand, at times lost in a thin stream, 
at other places broadening into great patches, runs 
northward until Carmel lifts the sky-line to its 
own jutting above the Bay of Haifa. Directly 
west of Ebal the country is a mass of brown and 
green-patched hills, which hide between them fer- 
tile valleys and tiny plains. A gap beginning at 
the nose of Carmel creeps down between the hills 
until it joins the Jordan. Below this depressed 
line the plains of Esdraelon and Jezreel were ripen- 
ing their grains and pasturing their flocks. Di- 
rectly north in the foreground of the range of hills 
stretching from Nazareth to the lake of Tiberias 
are Little Hermon and Tabor, almost dwarfed by 
the high ridge whose topmost peak is Jebel Jermak. 
Safed, to Jermak's right, faintly gleams against 
the notch which rises beyond. Still north and far- 
ther away the Lebanon snows gleam brighter than 
the enfolding sky, while a little to the east of them 

166 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 

Hermon, always sublime, always royal, appears 
much the same at seventy-five miles of distance as 
he does at twenty-five. Southeast from Hermon the 
Sierra ranges of Gaulinitis carry the horizon to 
Gilead, and then Moab swings far south to dim 
distances. Nearer, almost at hand, Gilboa carries 
the view to the deep Jordan chasm in which out of 
sight the silver windings of the Jordan join Gen- 
nesaret and the Salt Sea. 

Ebal is not a single mountain summit. It is 
rather a group of several rounded peaks, the higher 
of which is a long ridge. Slightly varying vistas 
are seen from different viewpoints of this ridge. 
Walking to the eastward edge, a nearer view of the 
cultivated slopes of Gilboa, the Shechem Valley, 
Sychar and the parcel of ground which Jacob 
bought, are brought into view. The valley enclosed 
by Ebal and Gerizim, irrigated by the mountain 
springs, is a beautiful garden of olives, grapes, 
figs, pomegranates, plums, apricots, lemons, and 
mulberries; also melons and vegetables are freely 
cultivated. 

Nablous itself is built along two main streets, 
one running along the base of Gerizim, and the 
other at the foot of Ebal. Five-sixths of the town 
is on the Gerizim side of the valley. Short streets 
run back from the main thoroughfare, and here the 
greater part of the thirty thousand people live. 

167 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



These narrower streets contain the markets and 
bazaars. Some of them are arched, and these are 
sunless, damp, and filthy. The one long street is 
alive with moving merchandise. A string of 
twenty-two camels wound their way through the 
town at noon, and another caravan of thirty-seven 
rested beneath the olive trees near our tents. An- 
other smaller group was unloading its bales of gaso- 
line for the engines which turn the flour-mills. 

Twenty minutes of riding from Nablous to the 
east and north lead to the village of Sychar, cling- 
ing to the foot of Ebal, the usual squalid assem- 
blage of Palestinian mud, manure, and stones. 
John in his Gospel speaks of the city of Sychar, 
and the narrative implies that the disciples went 
to this town to buy food, and that from this town 
the woman came to Jacob's Well for water. Two 
facts make this story, as it is recorded, difficult to 
understand, measured by the scene to-day. She- 
chem is almost as near the well as Sychar, and in 
Jewish history always was more important than Sy- 
char. The narrative ignores this larger place. 
Sychar must have been much larger in the time 
of Jesus than it is at the present, and so may have 
extended much nearer the well than it does to-day. 
The other confusing circumstance is the abundance 
of water which gushes out of the base of Ebal in 
the very midst of the present Sychar. There ap- 

168 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 



pears no reason why the woman should go so far 
to fill her water- jar. The well is deep, as the nar- 
rative says, and the water must be drawn. The 
Sychar springs throw a large stream. The well, 
which is again clear of rubbish, and its water usable, 
is no cooler or clearer than the much nearer Sychar 
supply. It must be that Sychar was larger in 
former times and extended farther south, and so 
brought its southern edge near the well. This 
alone seems to account for the woman meeting Jesus 
and becoming immortalized. 

A good picture of the mouth of the well as it 
appears to-day is not easily obtained. The Latins 
have built a chapel over the well, repaired the curb, 
set up a small windlass for drawing the water, and 
have a beautiful church in process of erection over 
the famous spot. A monk receives the visitors, 
draws the water, and, in lieu of baksheesh, sells vil- 
lainous postcards at five cents each. 

At nine in the morning of April 21st our tents 
were loaded to spend the day and coming night on 
Mt. Gerizim. Our camp was pitched within ten 
rods of the tents of the Samaritans, who celebrated 
on the evening of this day their Passover. The 
path from our tents to the eastern summit of Mt. 
Gerizim led through the camp of the Samaritans, 
and we leisurely strolled among them. The people 
were in holiday attire, waiting for the sunset, when 

169 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



the feast was to begin. Forty-four tents were set 
up within a narrow area in which the Samaritans 
had been living for a week. One of the men, 
a lawyer, informed us that the Samaritans now 
number 196. This man invited two of our party, 
who were near, into his tent, and served tea. Close 
to the path were tied eight lambs, seven of which 
were to be slain at sunset. One of these lambs was 
black, but we were told that it was no less accept- 
able. 

At the eastern end of the village of tents stood 
the tent of the high priest. He is an elderly gentle- 
man of seventy-four years. He was dressed in a 
gray cloth outer cloak, much resembling a raincoat, 
under which was a gown of pale yellow. On his 
head was a fez, almost hidden by a cloth of em- 
broidered silk. He has one son grown to manhood, 
but for some reason he will not succeed his father 
in the high priesthood. This office will pass to a 
cousin of the present incumbent. This man has 
three sons, who also style themselves priests. These 
men consented to be kodaked on the promise of a 
picture. 

Five minutes' climb beyond the tents leads to 
the eastern end of the mountain, which here de- 
scends abruptly into the plain. The view from 
Gerizim is much more limited than that from Ebal. 
A little more of the gorge of the Jordan opens 

170 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 

to the east, and the hills rolling toward Jerusalem 
and the white strip of carriage road winding 
through them are seen to better advantage. To the 
west the sands of the Mediterranean shore and the 
sea lost in the infinite sky yield the same effects 
as on Mt. Ebal. To the north the latter mountain 
usurps the vista and leaves to Gerizim only the full 
sweep of Shechem lying in the vale below. At this 
eastern end of Gerizim are two places especially 
sacred to the Samaritans. One is an area of flat, 
native rock, twenty feet in diameter. On this spot 
they claim that the Ark of the Covenant rested, and 
so marked Gerizim, and not Zion, as the place where 
men ought to worship. The other sacred spot is a 
natural, rectangular hollow in the rough rocks. 
Here, it is asserted, Abraham offered Isaac, and the 
hollow was made by Isaac's miracle-working body. 

During the afternoon the high priest and his 
cousin called at our tent on our invitation. It 
being a fast day, they refused coffee, but the cousin 
smoked a cigarette borrowed from the cook. They 
stated that there are now thirty-five Samaritan 
families, but for the Passover feast they are reck- 
oned as seven. To each such family is assigned 
one lamb. The Samaritans greatly desire to pos- 
sess the summit of Mt. Gerizim. In addition to 
the sacred places mentioned above, they point out 
twelve stones which Joshua brought from the Jor- 

171 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



dan and set up on the mountain. All these sacred 
sites are in possession of the Mohammedans, who, 
knowing the great desire of the Samaritans to pur- 
chase, hold the rocky mountain-top at an exorbitant 
price. The Samaritans, who are not wealthy, can 
not pay the $5,000 required to put themselves in 
possession of the land. Many Americans, the two 
men said, have promised to aid them, but their 
good will, "though abundant as clouds, has brought 
no rain." Such was their quaint characterization. 

On the high priest's invitation our party called 
at his tent. Coffee a la Turc was served. We were 
shown the ancient codex of the Samaritan Penta- 
teuch. It is in a cylindrical brass case inlaid with 
silver. On the outside of the case is a silver mosaic 
of the tabernacle which Moses, according to tra- 
dition, was ordered to build for use in the wilder- 
ness. The case opens in three sections, and dis- 
closes the manuscript written on parchment in clear 
characters. The manuscript is approximately 
twenty inches in w T idth, and is carried on two rolls, 
the handles of which project through the upper end 
of the brass case. The case is wrapped in an em- 
broidered cloth and locked in a wooden chest hidden 
from curious eyes by a curtain. The high priest 
accepted eighty-five cents gratuity for the view 
had by us of the precious document. The high 
priest has written several articles which have been 

172 



MT\ EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 



translated, edited, and printed in American jour- 
nals. They deal with the history and religion of 
the Samaritans, Mt. Gerizim as the sacred moun- 
tain where God wishes men to worship rather than 
on Mt. Zion, and the Messianic hope among the 
Samaritans. These are offered for sale as well as 
copies of their Pentateuch. 

It was an extremely interesting hour which we 
spent in the tent of our host, the high priest, and 
though in some respects he has the mind and de- 
meanor of a child, he is withal a pleasant gentle- 
man, rich in faith, and patriarchal in his conduct 
toward his people. During the time we were his 
guests, a number of Moslem visitors also called, 
and three of our company, who were seated cross- 
legged upon the rugs, were introduced as students, 
and those who chanced to be seated on divans were 
the professors of our party. The Arab gentlemen 
seeing gray hairs upon at least one of the "stu- 
dents," began to laugh at our stupidity. In Mos- 
lem schools the main task is to commit to memory 
the Koran. He who becomes gray in the process 
is dull indeed. The Western ideal of unceasing 
cultivation of the intellectual life seems not to have 
penetrated to the Moslems of Nablous. The pho- 
tographer of our party, after some bargaining, 
persuaded, by a cash consideration, the high priest 
to sit for a picture. He would not leave the tent; 

173 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



he did not wish to demean himself in the eyes of 
his people. The back part of the tent was thrown 
open to obtain sufficient light, but before the camera 
was ready, already had the scene become too con- 
spicuous for his pride, and the affair was ended 
abruptly. 

Late in the afternoon of Sunday, April 21st, 
the camp of the Samaritans began to pulsate with 
the expectation and preparation of the sacrifice. 
At four o'clock the fires were lighted in the pit in 
which the seven lambs were to be roasted for the 
Passover. This pit was, roughly, three feet in 
diameter and nine in depth. It was lined with 
stones. Some thorns, the small bushes which grow 
everywhere in Palestine and of which the crown of 
Jesus probably was woven, after a short prayer at 
the mouth of the pit, were lighted by the high 
priest with a match. When they began to flame 
they were thrown into the pit, and others quickly 
were added during the recitation of another short 
ritual. Then wood was thrown into the pit from 
time to time, and a brisk fire was kept burning. 
At almost five, two large pots were filled with water 
and a fire kindled under them at the shallow pit 
where the lambs were to be slain. This pit was 
eight feet long, two feet in width, and the same in 
depth. Should any of the seven lambs first chosen 
in any way prove imperfect, another is substituted. 

174 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 



Eight lambs were in readiness, and a ninth lamb 
was held in reserve at one end of the camp. A 
path beyond the tents leads to the eastern summit 
of Mt. Gerizim. A ruined weli now crowns this 
point. The lambs are males a year old. 

Although it was drizzling rain, a large crowd 
of Mohammedans from Nablous came to the moun- 
tain-top and crowded themselves to the front wher- 
ever anything was to be seen. A squad of blue- 
coated Turkish soldiers was kept busy yelling 
"Ruh" and "Yella," and pushing and striking those 
who did not immediately move aside at their orders. 
We Americans were treated as guests of honor, and 
were not molested. We perched ourselves upon a 
stone wall ten feet from the pit of killing. Bags 
of freshly-plucked grass were brought up the 
mountain, and the grass was spread about the place 
of slaughter to catch the blood. Peanut and orange 
venders cried their wares in the midst of the crowd. 

At a quarter past five the seven lambs were 
brought to the pit of slaughter, and as many men, 
clothed in white and grouped round the pit, held 
the lambs. At half -past five the elders came from 
their tents, entered the enclosure where the lambs 
were held, spread rugs upon the ground, and, kneel- 
ing upon them with face toward the eastern summit 
of Gerizim, began to recite the preliminary prayers. 
There were fourteen of these men, their heads and 

175 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 

beards gray, and all but one in long, white robes. 
The one exception was dressed in blue. At a quar- 
ter of six the high priest, clothed in a yellow-green 
robe, took his place upon a rug, and at ten of six 
the group began chanting a ritual. Their eyes 
were closed, and hands were extended, palms up- 
ward, and from time to time their heads were 
bowed in unison. This continued for twenty-five 
minutes. Others besides the elders joined in the 
latter part of this ritual. The circle of men around 
the pit of slaughter grew more earnest and boister- 
ous as the chanting drew near the end. The words 
at times were recited, at other times chanted. The 
elders, who toward the close of this service had 
arisen, finished with a rapid chant in which all 
joined with increasing excitement, until at fifteen 
minutes after six the high priest gave the signal 
for the sacrifice. The lambs were thrown upon 
their backs and held with their heads extended. 
Three men, with long, sharp knives, quickly cut 
the throats of the lambs, and the men holding 
them turned the bodies so that the blood flowed into 
the pit or upon the grass which had been spread 
at the pit's edge. The high priest passed through 
the group to inspect the wounds, and found that 
the lambs had been correctly killed. Those who 
had participated in the killing showed their glad- 
ness by joyful shouts. The hand of the high priest 

176 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 



was seized and kissed by many, and his hand pressed 
to their heads. 

Hot water was poured upon the lambs, and 
three or four men at each lamb began to pluck 
the wool. When one was free from wool a pole 
was thrust between the sinews and the bone of the 
two hind legs, and the pole was held by two men 
shoulder high, so that the lamb swung head down- 
ward between them. Then one of the official 
butchers removed the entrails, separated the heart 
and lungs from them, cut off the right fore shoul- 
der for the high priest, washed the carcass and 
placed it upon a spit. The spit, a pole ten feet 
long, sharpened at one end, was passed from the 
neck through the entire length of the body. A 
lattice-work of wood, with openings four inches 
square, had been made, large enough to cover the 
opening of the pit of roasting. This lattice was 
laid flat upon the ground, and newly-woven baskets 
were cut in pieces to provide matting upon which 
to lay the flesh. Salt was rubbed into the meat, 
and the heart and lungs, well salted, were placed 
inside the body. It was not until eight o'clock that 
the lambs were placed in the pit for roasting. The 
spits, with the head of the lamb downward, were 
set into the pit, the heads of the lambs within two 
or three feet of the bottom of the pit, which was 
a foot deep with coals. Then the lattice was placed 
12 177 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



upon the top of the pit, with the ends of the spits 
projecting through the openings. The shoulders, 
the especial portion of the high priest, were lowered 
separately. The lattice was covered with brush, 
and the whole was cemented with mud. In the 
meantime the entrails were brought to the pit of 
slaughter and a fire kindled under them. These, 
with the wool, bones, and any parts of the roasted 
lambs not eaten, were burned. 

At half -past ten a chanted ritual began, and 
continued for half an hour. The pit of slaughter 
is in an enclosure surrounded by rough stone walls 
four feet high. This enclosed area is approxi- 
mately twenty-five feet by fifty feet. At the middle 
of this space a lantern swung from a post, and 
beside it sat a man who chanted a prayer, and a 
score of others answered with a refrain. As the 
time drew near to open the pit of roasting, this 
space became filled with men, women, and children. 
At eleven o'clock one of the men began to remove 
the baked earth which covered the lattice, and in 
a few moments the top was thrown back and the 
spits with the roasted lambs removed. Each lamb 
was wrapped in matting and was laid upon the 
ground in the enclosed space. The people gathered 
in seven groups, each having its own lamb, with the 
exception of the high priest's family, who had, in 
addition, the right front shoulder from each of the 

178 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 



other six lambs. The men, with loins girded and 
staff in or at hand, together with the women and 
children, sat upon the ground. Some green herb, 
chopped fine, was sprinkled upon the meat. After 
another short ritual, in which jubilation was evi- 
dent, the people began to eat at twenty-five minutes 
past eleven. There were no knives or forks. Each 
helped himself and wrapped his meat in the thin 
sheets of unleavened bread. They ate in haste. 

Not all the people ate in the open space. Some 
were in their tents. The eating was finished at 
twenty minutes of twelve, and by midnight the re- 
fuse had been thrown into the pit of slaughter and 
burned. At the close of the meal the high priest 
stood and pronounced a benediction. Children then 
were brought forward for his blessing, and men 
and women impressed a kiss upon his hand. De- 
spite the crude and somewhat gruesome spectacle 
of the killing and the piggish manner of eating, 
some of the men prominent in the feast are intelli- 
gent and dignified. The high priest is venerable, 
commands respect, bears himself with dignity, and 
is honored among his people. His cousin, who will 
succeed him in the priesthood, and the latter's three 
sons likewise are men of seeming excellent character. 
Another of the number is a lawyer, who speaks 
broken English. He spoke intelligently of his 
people and the conditions of the country. During 

179 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



the eating of the Passover lamb he turned to us, 
who were perched upon the stone wall behind the 
high priest's family, and said that he would be 
pleased to share the lamb with us, but that it was 
forbidden. 

•After twexve the company dispersed to their 
tents. At six in the morning a company of white- 
robed men conducted some final service at the place 
of feasting, and closed the ritual with a seven-fold 
amen which echoed from the higher slope of Ger- 
izim. As we took horse at seven and rode past 
the Samaritan camp, the people were preparing 
meals to compensate them for their fasting, and a 
number of the men bade us a cordial farewell. The 
whole Samaritan population remained in camp an- 
other week, and closed their annual festival with a 
service beside the holy rock at the utmost summit 
of Mt. Gerizim. 

The spectator of this strange scene carries away 
with him a mingled judgment concerning their 
Passover. One undoubtedly witnesses a primitive 
form of sacrifice which, with a minimum of modi- 
fication, has persisted through the centuries to the 
modern age, until it is strangely inconsonant with 
the day, even in Palestine. It is a survival of an 
age when all killing and eating of animals was 
sacrifice. It is without doubt a close resemblance 
to the Passover Feast which the ancestors of Jesus 

180 



MT. EBAL AND MT. GERIZIM 



instituted, and m which He also must have partici- 
pated. All this butchery and barbarism need no 
more be embosomed in religion. 

The Christ, beautifully and impressively bring- 
ing into the foreground of religious thinking the 
ethical demands of the great Hebrew prophets, has 
ended all such requirements of religion. Yet the 
devotion of the Samaritans to the ancient tenets of 
their faith ; the endurance of Jewish, Greek, Roman, 
and Moslem attempts to crush them ; their hope to 
possess their sacred mountain and to enlarge the 
borders of their numbers and influence, and their 
manifest religious emotion in the conduct of their 
gruesome ritual, command respect, mingled with 
the pity that, when He met their forebears at 
Jacob's Well and at Sychar, His words were not 
heeded, that men need no longer climb to Gerizim 
and make pilgrimages to Jerusalem. 



181 



XVIII 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 

The path which took us from Mt. Gerizim wound 
around the eastern end of the mountain into the 
Plain of Askar, which stretches several miles along 
the eastern slopes of Gerizim and Ebal through the 
heart of Samaria. After the three hours' rain 
which began at midnight, the sunny morning was 
one of the most beautiful of the month. The plain 
was full of plowmen, planters, women plucking 
the tares out of the wheat-fields, other women carry- 
ing great bundles of brush for firewood, while the 
white carriage-road winding up the hills toward 
Jerusalem was brisk with caravans. The eastern 
side of the plain climbed the gentle slopes of the 
low range of mountains trailing out toward the 
Jordan. This plain is only one, though the largest, 
of a series of plains embosomed among rocky hills, 
which open out into each other or are separated by 
ridges, from Shechem to Ain Sinya, our last camp 
on the road to Jerusalem. The carriage-road fol- 
lows this chain of valleys and offers one of the most 
pleasing routes of Palestine. The valleys are rich 

182 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 



with gram, and the rocky mountains are terraced 
with olive trees. el-Lubban, the ancient Lebonah, 
is one of the mlore beautiful of these Samaritan 
plains, lying in its casket of hills. Near here, per- 
haps beside the spring from which a narrow valley 
winds through the hills to Shiloh, the women of the 
latter city, who came here to dance, were captured 
by the wifeless Benjamites ambushed in the vine- 
yards. There are women still in the fields, but our 
young men passed them by. East and south of the 
plain of Lebon&h is the low hill where stood the 
sanctuary of Shiloh. There are no memorials, save 
the hill, of Eli's sorrow and Samuel's childhood. 
"Go now unto Shiloh," Jeremiah makes Jehovah 
say, "and see what I did to it for the wickedness of 
my people Israel." Whatever was done to it was 
well done, for no foundations, no sanctuary walls, 
no altars, no signs of dwelling-places of those early 
Hebrew centuries are to be seen. A few memorials 
of the presence of the Crusaders, the isolated hill, 
and the Bible stories alone faintly enable us to 
re-create the life of that far past when the Ark of 
the Covenant, resting here, made Shiloh the chief 
sanctuary of the land. 

Some beautiful bits of winding road arched by 
olive trees are to be seen near Ain Sinya, and the 
patience with which these almost soilless hills have 
been cultivated and the splendid reward which the 

183 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



orchards yield are no better exemplified in Palestine. 
Near Ain Sinya, our camping-place, and to the west 
of the highway, lies the village of Jifna. This 
town was once sufficiently important to attract the 
conquering armies of Vespasian, and to be made 
the capital of one of the ten toparchies into which 
the Romans divided Judea. It is now a Christian 
village of six hundred people, with both the Latin 
and the Greek Church. We have seen no cleaner 
village, though the contrast is not great, or more 
pleasant and intelligent people. These qualities 
are apparent especially in the girls and women. 
The crude Christianity of these two rival confes- 
sions seems to have lifted slightly the intolerable 
burden which Moslemism lays upon woman. 

The morning call on April 23d was at half -past 
four, and at six we set out on our way "up to 
Jerusalem." A cold, damp wind blew from the 
west, before which the mist streamed through the 
valleys and curled along the slopes of the hills. 
Gradually the sun fought his way through the low, 
wet clouds and brightened the higher summits. All 
morning the black masses, pregnant with cold rain, 
bravely supported by the wind, retreated sullenly 
before the increasing sunlight, abandoned their 
damp baggage upon the grain and vineyards, and 
by noon were melted into blue sky. 

The ride along the carriage-road to Jerusalem 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 



is past many historic places. There is El-Bireh, 
the Beeroth of tKe tribe of Benjamin, whose men 
held to Ishbosheth in his contest with David for 
the throne. A footpath near here turns aside to 
the small village of Beitin, the Bethel where the 
wanderer Jacob, sleeping upon the stony terraces 
of the hills, dreamed of heaven and set up an altar.* 
Though lying at the southern boundary of the 
northern kingdom, it became the center of worship 
for the ten tribes, and in time its close affiliation 
with Canaanitish ritual and its ethicless religion 
awoke the scorn and denunciation of the great He- 
brew seers. Its squalor and poverty to-day yield 
no hint of its once famed splendor and wealth. The 
only picturesque view is seen from the well, look- 
ing north across an olive orchard to ruins of a 
Crusaders' church, now a mosque, and a distant 
tower. 

Farther on beside the highway comes Ramah, 
fortified by a king of Israel in his war with Judah. 
Later a deserted hilltop is the once inhospitable 
Gibeah, where a Bethlehemite traveling toward 
Ephraim was left sitting hungry and houseless in 
the street, where Saul had a residence, and per- 
haps where the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him 
until those about him questioned whether he had 
become a prophet. Later is seen the site of that 
Nob where David, fleeing from Saul, begged, upon 

185 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



a pretense, the shewbread from the priest. Last of 
all, Jerusalem, which, after a month of wandering, 
seemed a home, flashed into view from a ridge some 
miles away — Jerusalem, once a Holy City, now the 
goal of pilgrims of the world's three great mono- 
theisms, who in some measure fulfill the hopeful 
dream of the Book of Micah: 

And it shall come to pass in the latter days that 
the mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established 
on the top of the mountains and peoples shall flow 
unto it. 

During our absence from Jerusalem the pil- 
grims of the Greek Church had been coming to the 
Holy City from many lands to celebrate the Easter 
festival. The interest of the Greek Easter centers 
in two dramatic celebrations. The first in time is 
the "foot- washing." A platform is erected in the 
court at the entrance of the Church of the Holy 
Sepulcher, and upon it are assembled the arch- 
bishop and twelve bishops, who enact the lesson of 
humility and service which Jesus taught His dis- 
ciples during His last night. The archbishop, re- 
splendent in official regalia, passes from bishop to 
bishop with basin and towel until Peter rises to 
protest such service from his Master. But he, too, 
finally is persuaded, and the childish play, per- 
formed in the presence of hundreds who have paid 

186 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 



well far seats or standing-room, and whose outbursts 
of fanaticism are checked by scores of Turkish sol- 
diers, ends to hold the Greek communicant in tighter 
bonds of ignorance and superstition. 

The climax of the Greek Easter is the coming 
of the Holy Fire. Seats for this spectacle are 
sold weeks and months in advance. I applied to 
the American consul, but all the tickets at his dis- 
posal long had been promised. Giving up the ex- 
pectation of seeing this show, I wandered through 
the city until nearly noon, and then directed my 
steps past the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to 
reach my home at the American Colony. On reach- 
ing the court and seeing that it was not crowded, 
I leisurely made my way to the door of the church 
and slowly passed through the throng of Turkish 
soldiers, Greek monks, and peasant Christians in 
the costumes of a dozen countries of the East until 
within a few feet of the traditional sepulcher of 
Christ. From this tomb, when the people were 
prepared by the long service for its reception, the 
Holy Fire would burst forth to symbolize the de- 
scent of the Holj] Spirit. These simple-minded 
folk received the fire as sacredly and joyously as 
if it had been indeed the Holy Spirit within their 
heart. Around me on every side, filling the floor, 
clinging to pillars, crowded upon stairways, crushed 
in galleries, were men and women with bundles of 

187 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



candles to be lighted with the sacred flame. For 
the moment I turned Greek, slipped out of the 
church, bought some candles, and hurried back 
again to my place beside a great pillar near the 
sepulcher. Presently the fire shot forth from the 
apertures of the tomb, and within a few moments 
those who stood near the sepulcher had lighted their 
candles and passed the holy blaze to their neigh- 
bors until the whole church from floor to uppermost 
gallery was lit with glory. The candles for the 
most part were suffered to burn a few moments 
only, and then were snuffed, to be carried home 
across deserts and seas, to be lighted again only 
in life's most solemn hours. Some held their hands 
above the flickering candle until black with soot, 
and then this holy stain was smeared over the face. 

I stood beside an old peasant woman in faded 
dress, wooden shoes, and coarse, wool stockings, a 
bandana handkerchief about her head, who sat upon 
a stone ledge behind me. I passed the sacred fire 
to her. She did not see the unorthodox hand that 
touched her candles into flame. She saw nothing 
outwardly, for at the lighting of her candle the 
great tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks, un- 
stopped by kerchief, to drop upon her toil-worn 
dress, but inwardly she saw the gleaming goal of 
a lifetime of sacrifice and perhaps of a thousand 
miles of pilgrimage. 

188 



GOING UP TO JERUSALEM 



Slowly the great throng passed out of the church, 
through the court, and poured into Christian Street 
toward the city gates. Many pilgrims kept some 
of their candles lighted until well out into the street. 
Directly in front of me walked an old man, poor 
and humble, whose candle was blown out by a 
Turkish soldier just outside the church. The old 
man, taught by long experience of Turkish tyranny, 
gave no sign of resentment. I lighted his candle 
again, and the next soldier, in the act of repeating 
his comrade's coarse joke, caught sight of my 
blazing eyes and desisted from his heartless cruelty. 
It was the first time he ever had seen an American 
carrying the Holy Fire. 

I suppose these ignorant, superstitious Greeks 
believe the priestly tale that the fire comes down 
from heaven. They go to their distant homes with 
the blazing miracle the subject of a life-long won- 
der, whose repeating will send a new generation to 
share the blessed gift at other Eastertides. No 
biting word of scorn burns deep enough to con- 
demn the infamy of the priestly imposture. No 
comforting word of love is too gentle to describe 
the peace and joy of carrying home the candle 
which has shared the sacred flame. I saw a group 
of these peasants on board ship from Jaffa to 
Beyrout, from whence the railway bore them by 
the way of Baalbek to Aleppo, and thence they 

189 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



passed overland by caravan to their home on the 
banks of the Euphrates. Their sacred candles were 
the guarded treasure of their meager baggage, and 
peace passing human understanding filled their 
heart. They were still in the daze of the coming 
true of a lifelong dream. They had gone up to 
Jerusalem, the Holy City. 



190 



XIX 



A DAY IN THE WILDERNESS 

An hour's horseback riding from Jerusalem along 
the carriage-road to Hebron suffices to reach the 
traditional tomb of Rachel, standing solitary, save 
for the few gnarled olive trees under which rest the 
pilgrims to this w r ayside shrine. A half mile be- 
yond, a little to the left of the Hebron road, lies 
Bethlehem, surrounded by vines and olives, town 
of immortal memories. No visitor to Palestine fails 
to see the home of David and the birthplace of 
Jesus. He will be shown the well for whose water 
David is said to have longed, and to secure which 
some of his loyal followers risked their lives. He 
will be asked to wonder over the place of the 
nativity. He will wonder without the asking at 
the convenience for the worshiper and sight-seer 
resulting from the close proximity of so many note- 
worthy events in early Christian history. For here, 
within a few paces of each other, are shown the 
grotto of the nativity, the manger in which the 
new-born Child was laid, the spot on which the 
adoring Magi kneeled, the scene of the slaughter 
of the children by the command of Herod, a spring 

191 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



which miraculously burst forth for the use of the 
Holy Family, and the scene of the vision in which 
the angel directed Joseph to escape Herod's cru- 
elty by a journey to Egypt. The thoughtful 
traveler will be able to put aside so much emphasis 
of site, and find stealing into his soul an inspira- 
tion which comes from having brought home anew 
the fact of Christ: that into these earth-born lives 
of ours, containing so much each day of burden, 
lowliness, and failure, He came with His sympathy, 
His loveliness and ideality of character, and His 
spiritual power to draw men into fellowship with 
Himself. This is the perpetual miracle of Chris- 
tianity, and something of its freshness returns in 
visiting the land where first it was realized. 

No one who seeks to know the land of the Bible 
should fail to spend at least some hours in the 
wilderness of Judea which stretches eastward and 
southward from the neighboring hills of Bethlehem. 
A short ride through olive-terraced hills and a few 
fields where Boaz once reaped his grain and found 
his wife quickly leads away from Bethlehem into 
a barren country. 

With each step of the journey the pasturage 
grows scantier, the gullies deeper, the hills more 
brown and gray. Within an hour from Bethlehem 
and half way to Tekoa there rises to the right 
Frank Mountain, where the Crusaders offered their 

192 



A DAY IN THE WILDERNESS 



last prolonged resistance to the Moslems. Herod 
artificially raised the hill, built a magnificent pal- 
ace-fortress, of which scanty ruins remain, and 
called it Herodium. It was rightly named, for the 
mound, magnificently isolated from the surround- 
ing mountains, has become the lonely king's soli- 
tary monument. Here Herod's body, brought from 
Jericho, was buried, and here some day the ex- 
cavator will discover splendid memorials of the 
dying greatness of the Jewish kingdom. 

Beyond Frank Mountain, getting its name from 
the Crusaders, the path to Tekoa follows the right- 
hand of two ravines which twist east through the 
rough hills of the wilderness toward the Dead Sea. 
The track follows the dry channel, sometimes of 
solid rock, sometimes heaps of smooth- worn stones. 
On either side are rocky ledges and hill-slopes 
covered with thorns and scattered grass-blades. 
There is no sound, no life, no human being save 
the two of us who have ridden forth into this soli- 
tude. We stop to take a picture of the barren, 
waterless wady, and at once, from <no where, a 
group of donkeys and their riders sweep round a 
jutting rock into view, who greet us with their 
"May you be blessed!" and pass on into the silent 
wastes with our "Twice blessed may you be!" fol- 
lowing them. Once a few Bedouin tents clung to 
the steep hills above the wady, and one of the men, 
13 193 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



on catching sight of us, followed, doglike, to the 
stone-marked hill of Tekoa, silent monument in the 
midst of the wilderness, witnessing through the 
centuries to the greatness of Hebrew prophecy. 

We gave our horses into the charge of our 
Bedouin and wandered over the scantily-clothed 
hill, the birthplace of Amos. Nothing is left save 
four or five acres of stone-heaps faintly suggesting 
the outlines of houses and towers of the town which 
once was an important outpost in the Judean wil- 
derness. The town comes first into prominence in 
the times of David. During his outlawry from the 
court of Saul, he often must have been in the neigh- 
borhood of Tekoa, and from it have drawn supplies. 
One of his mighty men was Ira the Tekoite. If 
the cave of Adullam is to be located in the neigh- 
boring Wady Khureitun, he had only to climb to 
the edge of the gorge to see the hill-town not 
more than a mile away. When he became king 
and hesitated in his policy toward Absalom, it was 
a "wise woman" of Tekoa under Joab's guidance 
who obtained the monarch's pardon for his way- 
ward son. 1 Under Rehoboam the town was fortified 
and continued to be a military post until the de- 
struction of Jerusalem. 2 Of Crusading times there 
are the scant remains of a Greek church: scattered 
foundation stones, a broken column, and a rose- 

»2 Sam. 14. a 2 Chron. 11:6; Jer. 6: 1. 

194 



A DAY IN THE WILDERNESS 



tinted limestone octagonal baptismal font five feet 
in diameter and nearly as high. 

The scene to-day expresses nothing of the for- 
mer glory of this wilderness town. 

Directly north of Tekoa and across almost bar- 
ren hills lies Jerusalem. To the northwest Beth- 
lehem clings to a grass-deserted hill. To the west 
and southwest stretch the long ridge of rolling 
summits to Hebron and the country beyond. To 
the east the quite barren marl ridges slope down 
to the Salt Sea. Beyond them the sea itself is in 
view through much of its length, while the Moab 
tableland rises mountain-high beyond. The scene 
of the boyhood and the manhood labors of Amos is 
desolate enough. There are a few patches of pas- 
turage and cultivated fields. Directly west, at the 
foot of the Tekoan hill, a tiny plain is green with 
wheat and barley. To the east for one or two miles 
some green slopes peep out from rocky hills. But 
from Olivet southward as far as the eye can follow 
the Jordan depression, the land is a mass of deso- 
lation. The sea which rests so peacefully between 
the lifeless ridges of Eastern and Western Pales- 
tine and bewitches you with a dozen vistas of blue 
is a mockery; it poisons the shores it kisses. 

Among these hills Amos led his sheep. In the 
spring, when the rains coaxed some scant blades to 
venture forth among the rocks, he who was to 

195 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



inaugurate a new religion in Israel guided his flocks 
as the shepherds do to-day, far down toward the 
grassless wilderness. It is not easy to understand 
such men. The scenes of their birth and the con- 
ditions of their toil seem pitifully incapable of 
explaining them. They seem to have made the 
land, not the land them. 

Yet Amos, though living in the wilderness, was 
not far from the busiest centers of Israel. Jeru- 
salem was in sight, and a few miles beyond, at 
Bethel, was the chief sanctuary of the northern 
kingdom. He was not isolated from the outer 
world. While these words were being written a 
string of laden camels passed through this deserted 
region along a traveled track within five minutes 
from the heap of stones upon which I sat. The 
world must have come knocking at the very thresh- 
old of this shepherd's isolated life. It came near 
enough in some fashion for this keeper of sheep 
and dresser of trees to know the history and ge- 
ography of his land to be familiar with its calami- 
ties of pestilence, famine, and earthquake; for his 
heart to grow sore with the luxury of the nobles, 
the worldliness of the priests, the miseries of the 
poor: the rapacious tyranny of the strong and the 
wretched injustice borne sullenly by the helpless. 
The shepherd of Tekoa was not a provincial in his 
thought, his sympathy, his social insight, or in 

196 



A DAY IN THE WILDERNESS 



his belief that righteousness lies at the heart of 
the universe. "No one can read his book without 
feeling that he haunted heights and lived in the 
face of very wide horizons." 3 

There are few places in Palestine where the 
contrast is so sharply drawn between fertility and 
desolation. He who saw the desert encroach each 
summer upon the pasturages, who experienced the 
burning heat of those dust-heaps in the mid-summer 
sun, and knew the sternness with which man must 
grapple with those sullen wastes to wrest from 
them existence, was better fitted to consider the 
character and purposes of Israel's Deity than those 
sensuous "kine of Bashan" inviting their lords to 
drunken revelry upon the ivory couches of Sama- 
ria's capital, or even the priests who had turned 
the nation's sacred shrines into strange scenes of 
wine-drinking, highway robbery, and murder. 
From his hill-home Amos could see beyond Jeru- 
salem the religious capital of Israel at Bethel. The 
flood of national immorality had swept southward 
almost to his wilderness. The tales of priestly 
orgies had become common gossip. The cry for 
justice had been raised by many an oppressed peas- 
ant and shepherd. The religion of Israel had be- 
come the cloak of the rich and the nakedness of the 
poor. Softness and luxury, instead of justice, 



*G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog., p. 315, 

197 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



humanity, and morality, were the object of priest 
and prince throughout the northern kingdom. 

Amos saw no softness and luxury in the sur- 
roundings of his toil. The shepherd needed to be 
sleepless by night and by day. The wild beasts 
had a thousand lairs in that wild waste of ravines 
and caves sweeping seaward : their hunting-grounds 
were the hills and the wadies where the flocks pas- 
tured. The sun blistered the grain-fields in the 
pockets of the hills and turned their winter torrents 
into highways. Man here could not be idle. Life 
was a continual summons to rigorous duty. Each 
man who knew the wilderness had begotten in him 
sympathy and reverence for the struggles of his 
fellows. Injustice was impossible. So the convic- 
tion grew in Amos that Jehovah too required from 
all men that the greatest service, the fullest 
strength, and the richest humanity should be exer- 
cised for the good of all. The neglect of this 
high duty could not be atoned by the costliest sacri- 
fice at the sacred places. Human justice is the one 
incense acceptable to Jehovah. 

In twenty minutes after turning away from one 
of the most thought-provoking sites of Palestine 
we reached the deep gorge of the Wady Khareitun, 
where, high up the steep rock wall, is the tra- 
ditional Cave of Adullam. We again left the horses 
in care of the nameless Bedouin near the ruins of 

198 



A DAY IN THE WILDERNESS 

an old monkish settlement. This was the "New 
Laura," founded in the sixth Christian century by 
St. Sabas, and so named by him to distinguish the 
new monastery from the "Great Laura" near the 
Dead Sea. This latter monastery, still inhabited 
by fifty monks, who cultivate their tiny gardens 
and live their lonely life far up one of these mag- 
nificent gorges of the wilderness, continues to me- 
morialize the saint in its modern name, Mar Saba. 
Following the narrow path along a ledge on the 
right side of the descending gorge, the entrance of 
the cave, now partly blocked by fallen stones, is 
reached. This entrance is about six feet in height 
and three in width. A passage perhaps a hundred 
feet in length, narrow and low, leads into a vast 
cavern. Adjoining this is a second great domed 
hall, and from these a bewildering maze of pas- 
sages lead, it is said, into miles of galleries and 
caverns. If this was the scene of David's strong- 
hold, no army on earth could have dislodged him 
save by siege. Whether or no it protected the 
king from the vengeance of Saul, it stood the Chris- 
tians of Tekoa in good stead when the Turks sacked 
their town in the twelfth century, and frequently 
was the dwelling-place of monks who sought lonely 
withdrawal from the world. 

The Bedouin had played us fair, and we gave 
him some silver souvenirs of his self-appointed 

199 



A SYRIAN PILGRIMAGE 



guardianship of ourselves and horses. Leaving him 
with his black tents and his sheep and goats, and 
wondering why the desert did not also give him a 
soul, as it had done to a Tekoan shepherd centu- 
ries ago, we rode back through Bethlehem and 
raced the twilight the greater part of the way into 
Jerusalem. 

This journal is ended. Aside from the new 
insight into our religion and its sacred writings 
which an acquaintance with the topography of Pal- 
estine yields, there abides this inspiration: The 
finest idealism which the world knows was born in 
an unworthy land; there is nothing commensurate 
with the ethical vision of the Hebrew prophets and 
the life of Jesus in the natural conditions of Pales- 
tine. The land has not created the world's religion. 
There is no miracle-working power in the hills and 
valleys, lakes and skies of Palestine. Men's souls 
are not the creatures of the soil, nor are they 
fettered by natural boundaries. Each man's 
country may become for him a Holy Land, and his 
town be transformed into a Holy City. It is not 
man's relation to his native soil which makes him 
noble; it is his partnership with God. 



200 



flNDEX 



Ahab, 144. 
Ain Duk, 45. 

et-Tabigha, 131. 

Kanya, 113. 

Musa, 52f . 

Sinya, 183. 
Ajlun, 95. 
Anathoth, 44. 
Antonia, 27. 
Ammon, 84, 86, 94. 
Amos, 31, 164, 194, 196ff. 
Arabia, 14. 

Banias, 116, 118. 

Barak, 122, 124, 156. 

Bedouin, 51, 54, 58, 81, 99, 120; 
camp, 71, 76, 102; shrine, 
129; funeral, 106; win- 
nowing, 75. 

Beit er-Ras, 96. 

Bellevoir, 138. 

Bethany, 37ff. 

Bethel, 185, 196. 

Bethlehem, 58, 70, 191f. 

Bethphage, 35, 36. 

Bethsaida, 106. 

Bethshan, 17, 139. 

Birket es-Sultan, 40. 

Csesarea Philippi, 116. 
Callirrhoe, 62. 
Cana, 150. 
Capernaum, 129f. 
Capitolias, 96. 
Chorazin, 128, 130. 
Circassians, 81, 88, llOf. 
Copts, 29. 

Crusaders, 18, 23, 114f, 121, 
138, 150, 183, 185, 192, 
194. 

Cyrus, 16. 



Dan, 119f. 

David, 73, 82, 191. 

Dead Sea, 35, 53f, 63, 85, 195. 

Deborah, 122, 154, 156f. 

Dibon, 70, 73ff. 

Dothan, 160. 



Edomites, 14. 
Egypt, 16. 
Elijah, 154. 
Elisha, 47, 60, 145. 
el-Bataihah, 104f. 

-Hammi, 98. 

-Hasa, 94. 

-Jish, 124, 129. 

-Kuneitra, 108, HOff. 

-Lubban (Lebonah), 183. 

-Muhraka, 153. 
Endor, 147. 
Engedi, 65. 
Esdraelon, 139f. 
es-Salt, 84f, 111. 



Fellahin, 119, 129, 158f. 



Gadara, 17, 97. 

Galilee, Lake of, 99f, 102ff, 109, 

127, 131f, 133f. 
Gaulinitis, 108, 110, 139, 141. 
Gennesaret, Plain of, 131f. 
Gerasa, 17, 87, 89ff. 
Greek civilization in Palestine, 

16, 82, 89, 117, 140. 
Greek Easter, 186f . 

Holy Fire, 19, 187f. 
Gibeah, 185. 
Gideon's Fountain, 143f. 
Giscala, 124. 
Golan, 108. 



201 



INDEX 



Hammurabi, 14. 

Hauran, 108. 

Hashbani River, 121. 

Herod Antipas, 64. 

Herod the Great, 14, 27, 30, 

38, 47f, 53, 62, 64f, 160, 

162f, 193. 
Hillel, 125. 
Horns of Hattin, 127. 
Hosea, 32. 
Huleh Lake, 120. 
Hunin, 121. 

Irbid, 94f. 
Isaiah, 32, 41, 70. 

Jabbok River, 86f, 89, 139. 
Jaulan, 108f, 133. 
Jebel Osha, 85f, 129. 
Jehoram, 73. 
Jehu, 144. 
Jenin, 158. 

Jeremiah, 41, 44, 183. 

Jericho, 46f. 

Jerusalem, 22f, 196. 

Ecce Homo Arch, 28, 30f; 
Church of Holy Sepulcher, 
19, 27, 29f, 31; Damascus 
Gate, 25f; David Street, 
24; David's Tower, 30; 
Gethsemane, 26, 33 ; Golden 
Gate, 39, 57; Haram esh- 
Sherif, 38; Hinnom Val- 
ley, 23, 38, 40f; Jaffa 
Gate, 23; Kidron, 33, 38; 
St. Stephen's Gate, 26, 33, 
39; Temple Area, 35, 38; 
Via Dolorosa, 27, 30. 

Jezebel, 144. 

Jezreel, Plain of, 139f, 144; 

village, 141, 144. 
Jibna, 184. 
Jizeh, 77. 

Jordan River, 101, 104f, 106, 
134, 138; source, 118, 119, 
121; valley, 36, 48, 50, 54, 
85, 120. 



Kafr Birim, 124, 130. 

Kalat es-Subebeh (en-Nam- 

rud), 114, 116. 
Kedesh, Naphtali, 122. 
Kirbet Sok, 80. 
Kishon River, 153. 

Little Hermon, 139, 141, 144ff. 
Lamentations, 15. 
Lily of the Fields, 53. 

Machserus, 58, 62ff. 
Magdala (Mejdel), 132. 
Mar Saba, 199. 
Medeba, 55f, 60, 110. 
Megiddo, 156. 
Meiron, 124, 130. 
Mesha k. Moab, 73. 
Meshita, 78. 
Micmash, 44. 

Missions, Church Society, 85, 

94; Presbyterian, 113. 
Moab, 50, 58, 65f, 91. 
Moabite Stone, 55, 74. 
Mohammedanism, 127f. 
Mt. Ebal, 85, 165f. 

Carmel, 97, 152, 154f. 

Gilboa, 139, 141, 143. 

Gerizim, 85, 165, 170ff. 

Hermon, 109f, 113, 116, 
131, 152, 166. 

Jermak, 123f, 127. 

Nebo, 51, 54. 

Olives, 35, 44, 54, 63, 65, 
85. 

Scopus, 35, 44. 
Tabor, 97, 100, 127, 139, 
149. 

Mukeis, 97. 

Nabateans, 14. 
Nablous, 165, 167f. 
Nain, 147. 
Nazareth, 147f, 151. 
Nebuchadrezzar, 38. 
Nehemiah, 38, 41. 
Nob, 185. 



INDEX 



Obadiah, 124. 

Olive, Cultivation of, 123, 148, 

158, 161, 165. 
Omri, 54, 160. 

Pella, 17. 

Phiala Lake, 113. 

Philadelphia, 17. 

Phillip's Herod the Great, 117f. 

Place of Standing Stones, 60. 

Rabbath Ammon, 80ff. 
Ramah, 185. 

Rome, Influence of, 16, 53, 78, 
83, 89, 122. 

Safed, 105, 125, 127f, 152, 166. 

Samakh, 134. 

Samaritan Passover, 169ff. 

Sargon, 15. 

Samaria, 160f. 

Saul, 44, 141, 185. 

Shechem, 165f. 

Scythopolis, 17, 140. 

Shikoh, 183. 

Shunem, 145. 

Simon Maccabeus, 45. 

Storks, 53. 



Tanaach, 157. 
Tekoa, 192f. 
Tell el-Kadi, 119. 

-Mutesellim, 156. 

-Hum, 129. 

-Ma'an, 60. 

-Ramali, 51. 
Thotmes III, 16. 
Tiberias, 100, 104, 127, 131, 

135. 
Titus, 39, 44. 

Turkish soldiers, 29, 58, 77, 93, 
175, 186f, 189. 

Umm er-Rass, 76. 
Uriah, 82. 

Village, 154, 184. 
homes, 111, 142. 

Wady Heidan, 67. 

Weli, 67, 76. 

Zerka, 61. 
Wilderness of Judea, 192f, 195. 

Yarmuk River, 97f, 139, 141. 

Zionists, 18f, 136. 



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019 565 248 A 



